Where Do We Start
by sivvussa
Summary: Set immediately after ROTG. Fed up with just kisses, Daine sets Numair a challenge. He has twenty four hours to explain what's stopping him from going further, or he has to stop touching her altogether. He warns her that a whole day without touching will be a lot more difficult than she thinks, and tries to prove it. D/N, Fluff, missing scenes galore. Requested by Mirabar.
1. Challenge Accepted

A/N: Short Story (by request from Mirabar on FFN): "When they just got together and Daine is all over him and he is kinda shy."

Blurb:

Set in the two weeks after ROTG.

Fed up with just kisses, Daine sets Numair a challenge. He has twenty four hours to explain what's stopping him from going further, or he has to stop touching her altogether. He warns her that going for a whole day without touching will be a lot more difficult than she thinks. Determined to prove him wrong, Daine thinks over their relationship so far hoping that the answer will appear before temptation gets the better of her. D/N... obviously! Lots of fluff and missing scenes from the end of ROTG.

Notes:

This work is based on a request I got for my D/N one-shot collection "Bronze and Black". I loved the suggestion, but I think it's an idea that needs more than a one-shot to really work. This will probably be 3 - 4 chapters long. Let me know if you have any requests for the next story!

888

Chapter 1: Challenge Accepted

"This middle ground," Daine said, bursting into the study that evening, "is killing me."

Numair looked up, immediately pushing away his notes and giving his friend his full attention. Daine's quick changes in mood were getting more and more unpredictable, and this time he had no idea if the odd note in her voice was irritation or laughter. It could even be both. Catching her hand, he held her still.

"What middle ground, sweet?" He asked, threading his fingers through her own. She bit her lip, and he couldn't resist the urge to pull her a little closer. Daine shivered, and for a second her nervous energy seemed to drain away. Then she collected herself a little and tried to look stern.

"This middle ground," She squeezed his hand tighter, but saw that he didn't understand. It probably didn't even register with him that he was doing anything wrong, because it felt so natural to him to touch her. Even as she spoke he drew her close enough to see the dark expression in his guileless eyes. She could drown in those eyes, but that was exactly the problem. She blushed every time their eyes met and found her thoughts skipping away. He, on the other hand, kept some secret store of self-control ready to pull away _just_ when she wanted him to kiss her again.

Her words were more of a whisper than she had practiced, but she managed to say, "I don't like it. It's not fair."

Numair suddenly understood what had upset her, and both his hands fell away from her skin as if she'd scolded him. Daine laughed and made no attempt to move back, knowing that he didn't really _want_ to push her away. In the three weeks since the war had ended she had learned that much about her lover, at least. It was pretty much the only secret he had revealed, though. Her voice sounded hurt because she still didn't understand why they hadn't done more. "If this were a siege you'd've either attacked or gone home by now, Numair."

"You're not a siege... and I resent that metaphor." He said, matching her hurt for once. Catching hold of her chin to force her to meet his eyes, he drew a deep breath. "Daine, I don't want it to be like that. I don't even want you thinking it _should_ be like that. I'm not about to... to _assault_ you, for Shakith's sake!"

"Then what _do_ you want to do?" She demanded. "Gods above, Numair, I thought you wanted me. Short of walking into your room stark naked I'm being about as obvious as it's possible to be here, and you're making me feel like a scolded child." Seeing him flinch, her eyes widened and she exhaled in a rush. "That isn't what's stopping you, is it?"

He pulled a face at her. "You're not a child."

"I'm so glad you agree." She said tartly, and then her voice grew quieter. "There's nothing wrong between us, is there?"

"No." He looked up in surprise. "Of course not." Seeing her pale skin and the anxious way she was biting her lip, he kissed her forehead and murmured. "Magelet, please don't be angry at me. It's nothing like that. I just..."

Daine waited, watching him with a thin worry line between her eyes. He smiled wryly and smoothed it away with his fingers, letting them wander on to her soft curls and down to the nape of her neck. She shivered but kept watching him, her eyelids only fluttering closed for the briefest moment.

"Don't think I don't want you." Numair said gently, watching the wondrous changes in her eyes at his lightest touch. "I want you. I've dreamed about you in my arms. I want far more than you can imagine, sweetling. But I can't just take that from you."

"But I..." Daine swallowed and tried again. Her voice sounded strangely husky, even to her ears. "I really do want you to."

He shook his head, not even trying to hide the flush of colour in his cheeks. "I know. And I know how frustrated you must be – I'm stopping us from doing something we both want, and I can't even explain why." He smiled at her then, and as much as she was irritated at him, Daine found herself smiling back at the boyish guilt in his eyes. He leaned closer as if he were telling her a secret and there was a pleading note in his whisper, "It wouldn't be so bad if I had a reason, would it, Daine?"

"I don't know, it's pretty bad either way." She moved slowly into his lap, deliberately pressing closer, and when he failed to bite back a groan she kissed him. Moving from lips to cheek to ear, she breathed, "It just seems like a strange time to test the limits of your self control, love."

"Daine," He caught her hips with both hands, and for a moment they both froze and caught their breath. Then he let his out in a croaked plea. "Please don't do that."

She bit her lip, and abruptly moved away. "Fine." She said. "I won't, but... but I still don't like being caught in the middle. Either you want me or you don't. Until... until you decide one way or the other, maybe we shouldn't touch each other at all."

"I guarantee that trying that will make you even more frustrated," He said with a strangled laugh. Daine tossed back her head impetuously and folded her arms.

"Why would I be frustrated? My best friend is keeping a secret from me and I've been outright rejected by the first person I fell in love with, but other than that I'm just fine. You're the one who knows _exactly_ what he's missing out on."

"Not _exactly_ ," he echoed heatedly, and she blushed from head to foot. Tilting his head to one side, he grinned and said in a thoughtful voice. "We might try it, though. It's a good idea. Shall we say twenty-four hours, to see if we can get our heads clear?"

She smiled and nodded, a look of relief crossing her face. If nothing else, it meant that in twenty five hours he should at least have an explanation for her. He held out his hand, and she shook it with playful seriousness.

"So, this time tomorrow we'll talk?" She asked. He shook his head, suddenly looking mischievous.

"We'll start at dawn." He pulled her closer again, and this time she didn't try to hide the way he made her shiver. Eyes very dark, he murmured, "Right now, I want to kiss you goodnight."

888

A dull thunk woke Daine up, and she sat up blearily in bed to hear a stream of soft cursing coming from another room. The thud had sounded like something heavy hitting the wooden floor, and from the direction of the cursing Daine guessed it had been something in Numair's study. Probably a book. Something dull and heavy and dusty, if Numair's sneezing fit was anything to go by.

She yawned widely and looked around. She could see a cold cup of camomile tea and a piece of bread and honey had been set in a carefully cleared space on the table beside her. One of the local sparrows had flown in and was taking small pecks off the bread, but she waved it away with an apology and ate her breakfast hungrily.

Numair must have woken up early, she thought, and he had decided to keep himself busy. Making her some breakfast was a sweet gesture, even if he had absentmindedly left leaves floating in the tea and the bread was slightly hard. It was probably the only food he'd remembered to order from the servants at Corus when they moved back to the tower a few days ago; he had never been the best housekeeper. Daine smiled at the thought and licked honey from her fingers, wishing there was more. She dragged a dress on and padded downstairs to the kitchen, sighing at the mess. Honestly, even when the foxes raided the compost barrels they didn't make this much chaos! Grabbing another piece of chewy stale bread she cleared a space and started mixing up some bread dough. While the yeast was rising she started cleaning in earnest.

"We've had the same idea," Numair commented from the doorway, sounding amused. Daine looked around, nervously brushing flour from her hands onto her skirt. He was dressed in scruffy clothes and his hands were streaked with dust. She smiled. It was an odd thing that she hadn't realised she'd even been missing until they'd left the palace, but the dishevelled look suited him far more than he knew. Not that she would ever tell him that.

"Thank you for breakfast," she said instead.

He shrugged easily and gestured to the bread. "Are you making more?"

"I'm going to give the old loaf to the birds." Daine knew they both hated waste, and then she added, "I'll walk to the next farm over as well, and see if they have anything to sell. We haven't got any milk or cheese."

"That'll fill an hour." He winked at her lasciviously, and Daine felt herself blush to the tips of her toes.

"Can I kiss you good morning, beautiful?" Numair asked, and it was a serious question. Daine shook her head, and her own answer was just as guarded in its raw disappointment.

"We both know it wouldn't be just a kiss."

"True. And with a whole day to go…" He looked very pitiable for a moment and then he smiled secretly at her. "I admit I was tempted to wake you up before dawn."

"Why didn't you?" She said a little archly, wary of whatever the joke would be. He tugged at his nose.

"I slept past it. I've never been a morning person."

The girl laughed and turned back to her bread. Numair hid a smile. He had no inkling of Daine's private approval for his own looks that morning, but he might have been amused by how similar they were to his own at that moment. They were close to the way he admired the slow line of blushing skin which ran up her neck to nestle beneath her tousled hair. Provoking that blush, he decided, was just too delightful to resist. "Well then, if you'll excuse me I'm going to return to my books. Standing here I have both a gorgeous woman and a jar of honey in my eyesight, and it's a rather distracting combination."

"You're supposed to _eat_ honey!" She yelled out after him as soon as she could trust herself to form words.

"That's the idea!"

What idea? Daine found herself wondering that as she collected some money and a satchel, and some of the answers her vivid imagination provided made her shiver and press her thighs together, trying to relieve some of the tight feeling in her stomach. It didn't work as nearly well as she'd hoped.

Remembering his words last night, it suddenly occurred to her that he was proving his own stupid point. _I guarantee that will make you even more frustrated._ Gritting her teeth, she mentally cursed all lanky mages to Shakith. She had somehow managed to get caught in a game where they weren't just clearing their minds, they were openly daring each other not to touch. On the way out of the tower she fitfully shoved at the half-open door of his study, hearing the wood crash against the stone.

"You said that on purpose!"

He didn't answer, but she heard a soft chuckle and scowled at the swinging door. _Right, Numair – this means war!_

It took about half an hour to walk to Madding's farm. Daine thought about riding Cloud and taking the chance to complain to her old friend, but the day was too warm for any horse to want to be saddled, and as Numair had snidely worked out, she was trying to fill time. By the time she got there she was hot and dusty, which didn't improve her mood. All of the animals in the farm were lazing around in the sunshine and didn't want to either talk or play with an irritable wildmage, thank you all the same. Mistress Madding took her time taking milk and cheese out of her cellar, sighing in pleasure at the small, cool space while her guest waited outside on the porch.

"We're surprised to see you so soon," The good woman commented, handing over a sweating clay flask and a muslin-wrapped wheel of cheese. "We figured you both would be stayin' in the city until the worst is cleared up. We heard it was a messy fight."

"It was," Daine agreed, shivering at the memory of the bloodstained walls. In this weather they must be covered in swarms of black flies. "We were both sick after the last battle, and Jon... his majesty, I mean... sent us home to get better."

"Are you ill?" The farmer's wife frowned and looked at the girl more closely. She had known Daine since the first time she had stayed in the tower, a thirteen year old scrap of a thing who had boldly marched into her barn and informed her that her prize sow needed healing. She was happy when Daine shook her head and waved a hand dismissively.

"I don't mean sick, I mean... tired, really. Numair was worse. He used all his magic and then he wouldn't see a healer until I yelled at him, and it turned out the idiot broke two ribs. Numair said the man he was fighting tried to turn him to stone, but the magic only got as far as his bones before he worked out how to break the spell. Bones aren't meant to be... solid. Duke Baird said two of his ribs just crumbled into ashes, and after a few hours... " She shuddered and wrapped her arms around her knees. "I can't even imagine how it felt."

"Is he...?"

"Oh, he's fine now." Daine shrugged, a little distantly. "If it still hurts he isn't telling me about it, and I don't ask."

As she was walking home Daine thought over what she'd told the woman. It had taken her less than a minute to describe what had been days of worried, broken sleep as the healers fussed around Numair, catching the remnants of a spell which had made particles of bone and dust pollute his blood without him realising. He kept trying to get up before he was healthy. The healers found him out of bed one time too many.

The last time they caught him he was bent over double in the hallway, gasping in pain. They lashed his wrist to a bed in the soldier's ward, spelled the restraint to make it impervious, and told both him and the soldiers that if Master Salmalin was caught even looking at the restraining spell they would all be on a diet of salted gruel and half pay. The spell might have only held him for a day, but the glares of twenty burly men effectively curbed Numair's escape attempts for nearly a week.

Daine slept through the first few days of this. She and Numair had made their way back to the castle with Cloud and Onua. They had both felt exhaustion washing over them in a black wave the moment they reached the safe haven of the stables. Daine had fallen first, stumbling over a raised floorboard and finding that her legs refused to right themselves.

She woke up to find that she was in her own room, with several anxious animals and one tearful dragon fretting between the sheets. She had heard some of Numair's exploits from the cats, and the rest from a harassed looking Onua. She made it nearly out of the door before they collectively reminded her she wouldn't be allowed into that part of the healing wing.

Daine was still exhausted, but of course she couldn't sleep. She waited until darkness fell and then shapeshifted into a small brown cat. She struggled to hold on to the shape with so little magic filling her veins, but she was too stubborn to give in. Creeping in to the healing wing, she anxiously padded through the large rooms listening to each man's snore with her sensitive ears until she heard a familiar note. Heart in her mouth, she jumped on to the end of the bed and padded closer to the sleeping shape. When she was sure, she leapt joyfully onto the blanket, and then bounded up to his face.

"Whuh?" The human exclaimed sleepily, and Daine nuzzled against his cheek until his reddened eyes focused on her. "Daine," he sighed, smiling irresistibly, and he held out a hand.

She lay down beside him and cuddled against his palm, feeling her panicked heart finally relaxing. He looked exhausted and unfocused, as if he might drift back into sleep again in moments, but at least he knew she was beside him. When he fell asleep, she thought, she would creep away again. She had enough magic to stay for a few minutes.

He sleepily stroked her head, and a few minutes became half an hour, and as the room settled into the deep silence of midnight she felt her eyes sliding shut.

She woke up with a clumsy hand on her shoulder, and the sudden awareness that she was human again. Numair shook her weakly but urgently, and his croaked voice was torn between laughter and panic. "Daine! You changed back!"

She opened her eyes and blinked blearily at him for a moment, forgetting where she was. "Hullo, 'mair."

"Hello magelet," He replied, and kissed her forehead fleetingly. His dark eyes were very obstinately not looking anywhere but her face, and he said in an intense voice. "Daine, you absolutely have to turn back into a cat right now."

She was about to ask him what on earth was the matter when she realised that the only fabric touching her skin was the blanket above her and the soft linen of Numair's shirt. She covered her face, suddenly flaring with embarrassment.

"You've seen me naked before," She informed him in a tart whisper, trying not to think about the very large difference between being seen by a man and being naked in his bed. He scowled at her, and she noticed his own cheeks were scarlet.

"Even if I have, there are about twenty other men in here who haven't, and I don't want them to."

She smiled and asked in a low voice. "Are you defending my honour?"

"If you're still human in the next thirty seconds I think I might have to." He glanced around worriedly, and then an amused line appeared at the corner of each eye. "Not that I wouldn't duel each and every one of them if it came to that, Daine. It's just that you might wait until I can stand upright before sending me twenty scoundrels in one go."

"Fair enough," Daine said slowly, and raised her hand to trace the outline of his face. He was pale and shone with a cool sweat, and a week without a shaving had let coarse stubble begin on his face, but his eyes were bright and amused and wonderfully lucid. She rested her cheek against his own, impulsively affectionate. "Have I told you I love you yet, Numair?"

"Not in words," He murmured back, and laughed painfully. "But you did risk your honour sneaking in to find me in the middle of the night. I got the message, sweetling."

"And then you tried to get rid of me before I even got the chance to kiss you!" She made her voice sound disgusted and he shook his head wryly. Even that small movement obviously caused him some pain, but his voice was soft.

"I wouldn't dare do that."

"No," She murmured, and leaned closer. It felt odd to be the one in control, and for the first heartbeat she had a fleeting moment of doubt in case she was doing something wrong. Then the thought faded, because she breathed in and inhaled the close, living scent of the man she loved, and knew that he loved her too by the way his heart raced under her hands. He returned her kiss gently, carefully, as if she were as fragile as glass, but his hand shook against her shoulder and when he breathed in his breath hitched in his throat. Daine copied him curiously, learning as if by instinct the slow differences between love and desire and the way they struggled and danced together in every light touch.

"I need to leave now," She whispered shakily, finally drawing further away and stroking his cheek. "Or else I don't think I'll be able to."

He nodded, and his eyes had never looked so black. When she leapt on four paws to the cold stone floor and looked back he was only a shadow in the darkness, but she could feel the way his eyes followed her.

The next morning she slept late, exhausted by using magic she hadn't really had to start off with, and when she dressed and made her way to the healers' wing a guard blocked her way. Someone had seen a small brown cat sneaking away from the room in the early hours of the morning, and they had recognised the unusual fur shade as the wildmage's hair colour. Baird forbade her from entering the men's part of the healers' quarters again, and no cats were allowed past the door guards.

Daine knew they would have been watching for her even if she were strong enough to choose another shape. As it was, she could not even hold a bird shape for long enough to fly through the window. For the next few days she worked in the stables with the bruised and bloodied horses until she had passed out in exhaustion. She had woken up on a soft couch in Thayet's solar, with both reagents working at opposite sides of the room. When they saw that Daine was awake they both dismissed their pages and sat down.

It was a small comfort to be told that she was usually more sensible, even if Jon did say it through gritted teeth. It was impossible to bite her tongue. She told them that she had hoped to wake up in the healer's quarters.

"I want to see Numair." She said, setting her chin stubbornly. "They won't let me near him."

Jon had been one of her adopted guardians for six years, and so he knew exactly when Daine wouldn't back down. He didn't even bother arguing with her, but he shook his head and walked out of the room. Thayet gave her a quizzical look, but suggested that if Daine slept a little more and ate something, then perhaps Numair would be allowed a visitor.

"He doesn't need visitors. He needs to come home." The girl replied. "You know the healers need every bed they can get. And you know I've got more chance of getting him to stay in bed than some pushy green-robe healer with his nose in the air."

Thayet smiled crookedly. "Careful, Daine. I'm starting to hear your teacher's words coming out of your mouth."

"Then you agree I know how he thinks." Daine pushed, sitting up straighter and willing herself not to reel dizzily. Steadying herself against the back of the chair, she looked the woman straight in the eyes and let her see every raw truth held in her own pleading gaze. "Please, Thayet, I know he'd rather come home with me."

"With you." The woman echoed, and looked away before Daine's sudden blush got too obvious for her to pretend it hadn't happened. Then she sighed, gripped the girl's shoulder for a moment, and stood up with unconscious grace and an awkward smile. "We'll have to think about that, won't we? Get some sleep, Daine."


	2. Newly Human

A/N: Ooh, reviews! Thank you, lovelies. Have an update.

Chapter 2: Newly Human

Jon hadn't really sent them away from Corus; he knew they were both too stubborn to listen to anything less than a royal decree. In a rather petulant speech, he explained to Daine that he was banishing them so Numair didn't feel like he should be enchanting shattered runes or summoning rocks to rebuild the walls. Daine had also felt the lashing of the king's anger – when he found out that she had used her magic to trick the healers he was livid, although he didn't ask her what had happened in the men's ward. It was not the first time she and Numair had been magically drained, and they both had earned a reputation for being infernally underfoot when the other one was ill.

Daine saw it as a hard-won victory. In the girl's forthright mind, the right to go home and the freedom to see her friends were things no-one had a right to take away. She accepted the banishment with rather bad grace because of this, but cheered up remarkably quickly once the courier had left her room. Neither she nor Numair had unpacked since their visit to the Divine Realms, and so it only took her a few minutes to sort out their things and head to the stables to borrow a cart. Numair was a bad enough horseman when he was healthy. Besides, Kit could sit in the straw beside him.

The healers helped Numair to walk down to the courtyard, with warning glares in Daine's direction lest she break their newly-repaired human. She returned their scowls amiably and waited impatiently for them to settle her friend in the soft hay. He could at least move, now, although he was out of breath by the time he was comfortable, and one hand gripped his ribs painfully.

Before Daine had finished harnessing up the horse she spotted Thayet climbing into the wagon. She couldn't overhear the woman's low conversation with Numair, and when she jumped down she looked quite peaceful. Daine assumed she had just been saying goodbye, and so she missed the slightly worried expression on Numair's face. The man quickly smoothed the expression away, and by the time Daine had climbed up into the hay he looked just as impatient to leave as she felt. She waved to Thayet and the healers and picked up the reins.

After a few miles Daine let the horse rest, and looked around at the battle-ravaged land which had once been beautiful. She reached down, and Numair caught her hand and held it tightly.

"Do you think we were too late?" She asked, choking back tears. He shook his head, but didn't answer.

The road seemed to last forever, and it was overflowing with people whose homes had been destroyed in the fighting. Because there were so many curious people around neither Daine nor Numair really spoke until they were almost home. The tower was still standing, and both of them hid smiles of relief. It seemed selfish to be happy that their own home had been spared, when all around them they could see the ruins of other peoples' lives.

"We can help them rebuild," Numair said, and Daine smiled and nodded gratefully.

"After you're well."

He smiled at her and struggled to sit up straighter, dislodging Kitten from her napping spot on his lap. "It won't be long. They say they found the last of the stone shards this morning, so all I've got to do now is sleep off the healing, not... not regrow any more bone marrow or fuse tendons back together, or..."

"Stop!" She held up both hands, wincing. "Don't tell me things like that!"

Numair looked confused. "Daine, you're a healer. You can't possibly be squeamish. I've seen you force maggots out of infected sores while eating breakfast, for Shakith's sake!"

"Yes, but..." she shuddered and bit back nausea. "But it's _you."_

He looked taken aback, and then squeezed her hand apologetically. "I'll be well in a few days." He said, easily changing the subject back. "And you will, too."

"I'm fine."

"I'll tell you another gory story if you try to lie to me again." He said sharply. She gaped at him, and he shrugged off the serious retort with a smile. "Now I finally know your weakness!"

She looked away, pretending the horse needed help finding his way through the archway into the courtyard. Behind her, she heard a rustle of hay, and when the carriage came to a stop a weak hand gripped her wrist.

"I won't tell you any stories." He said softly, "I was teasing. But Thayet said you haven't been sleeping while I've been ill. I understand, sweetling. I won't sleep well either if I think you're making yourself sick. Will you try to rest, now we're home?"

She looked down at her feet, and felt as if the world were melting away a little. "Can I... can I stay with you?"

He stroked her cheek tenderly. "If you like."

She drew a deep breath and met his eyes, searching for... for what? She wasn't sure, but she heard the uncertainty in her own voice. "I mean... I meant..."

"Not that." Numair said in a low voice. She blushed and he kissed her forehead, his voice utterly inscrutable. "I'm tired, Daine. Let's go to bed."

Daine might have added to her short list of new discoveries about Numair after that night, but tumbling between the sheets in bleak exhaustion turned out to be exactly the same whether they were in love with each other or not. As she drifted into an uneasy sleep beside her lover, Daine mused that the world felt strangely unchanged.

They had shared a bed before – admittedly, not so often since Daine had grown older, and usually because of an icy night or crowded inn had forced their hand. Their violent life had the unfortunate habit of sending them both reeling into the pillows in numb exhaustion. In that state they could have shared a pillow with a gore-covered stormwing without even caring enough to roll away from its mocking face.

When exhaustion didn't haul them away the fear and panic of battle sometimes held them hostage, and there had been nights in the past when one or the other had pushed their bedroll a little closer just to feel less alone against the horrors of the night. They were so comfortable in each other's company that it genuinely amazed them when their friends objected to the impropriety of such casual closeness.

At the age of fifteen, Daine had jokingly told one nosy Rider recruit that she saw Numair almost as a sister. It had led to a very awkward apology, with Mari and Onua smothering giggles behind their hands, when the joke had spread through the barracks. Numair had stiffly accepted the apology, and then instead of a lesson that day he had caught her elbow and ferried her into a private classroom.

"I didn't think we even needed to talk about this," He said, before the door was even closed, "But if you say something like that to your friends again about me, I'll be very angry."

"Say what?" She demanded, unable to believe her ears. "That there's nothing going on between us? That's all I meant when I told that nosy..."

"And look where it ended up!" He returned, making one of his ineffectual frustrated gestures. "Gods below, Daine! Sometimes I think you don't have the sense of one of your sparrows!" Seeing the look of outrage on her face, he shook his head and tried to explain. "If you tell people obvious lies, then you're as good as saying they can make up any disgusting thing they like for the truth. A grown man who seduces a naive young girl... doesn't that sound believable?"

"You didn't." She said, and then added cruelly. "I am naive, but I probably would've noticed eventually."

He stopped pacing and stared at her. His voice grew distant and very, very careful. "Didn't. Not wouldn't. So... what? You think I just haven't bothered with you yet?"

She swallowed back a bitter lump in her throat. "You're being a paranoid dolt, and I didn't say anything like that, and when I said you were like a sister I really did mean you were like my family, not that you damned well care with your stupid believable nonsense." He didn't answer, and so she choked out, "If people are saying you're seducing people then you should look at all your women and not at my friends."

All of these things sped through Daine's mind that night, and they kept her awake long after Numair had fallen asleep. Only one thing made her feel a little relieved: that the wide, overstuffed mattress which flowed over the creaking shelf of Numair's bed had never held another woman. Numair had, of course... and that thought made her shift restlessly against the dusty pillows. Her metaphorical sibling, the great gossip-besieged seducer, had gone through the blonde women of the court with the same systematic interest he held for books.

Of course, he had discarded most of them just as quickly, and none of them had ever been invited back to the tower.

For a few weeks after the sister incident, Daine had combined petty revenge with her genuine hurt at being treated like a naive child. Drawing on her teacher's example, she had decided to make her vengeance into an educational exercise. Listening at keyholes, she told herself archly, was for people who couldn't grow bat ears to hear into the apartment next door.

The vengeful delight had soon faded into a bitter self-loathing and she stopped, but it was some days before she could meet Numair's eyes again, or bear to be in the same room as his current mistress. Finally, overcome with guilt, she had confessed to Onua. The horsewoman barely scolded her, but sighed and shook her head over Numair's choice in women.

"Aren't you angry with me?" Daine asked, and then in a quieter voice, "Should I tell him?"

"No, and no." Onua said shortly, scrubbing mildew off an old saddle. "If he's so fixed on raising you then he should have worked out you're growing up whether he teaches you those lessons or not. If he hasn't, I will. What you can't learn from watching your animals you should probably learn from a woman anyway."

Daine reddened, "Ma taught me about... about..."

Onua laughed softly. "The mechanics of things and the way they feel are very different, Daine."

Years later, lying awake on the overstuffed mattress beside the man she had spied on, Daine rolled onto her side. Reaching out a hand, she thought about how many bones there were in her hand, and how many muscles, and how there were five pink nails and one calloused palm. She pictured it opening and closing like a clockwork toy, mechanical and empty. Then she closed her fingers slowly around her lover's gently curved hand, and it felt warm, and familiar, and safe, and good.

888

Kitten was banished from the room the next morning, although neither Daine nor Numair could remember which of them had sent her sulking away. They only knew that they had woken up and the sun was shining through the open shutters, and they were together, and instead of the cries of battle they could hear birdsong outside. It was like slipping from sleep into wakefulness; there was no moment when they were separate, and no moment when they consciously moved into each other's arms, but rather a slow dance of gentle accidents that brushed hands against skin until they were both breathing quickly, playfully exploring each other's body, coaxing the other to be bold and then shyly moving away from their searching fingertips.

"Send the birds away, too," Numair breathed, his hands strong around her waist, and Daine would have laughed if she hadn't been so breathless.

"They don't mind, they're not looking." She managed, and gasped in surprise when he caught her leg and rolled so she was lying on top of him. Catching her neck, he pulled her down for a very heated kiss.

"I mind." He told her the moment he let go. Seeing her dazed, lost expression, he laughed darkly and kissed the end of her nose. "What, no magic? Do I have to teach you how to find your centre, magelet?"

Daine was about to retort, but the double meaning in his words made her blush so red that she couldn't speak. Numair stroked her cheek and smiled lovingly at her. "Gods, you're adorable."

"Are you feeling better?" She asked, pulling a face at being cosseted. When he beamed and nodded she lay down against him, nestling her cheek against his shoulder with catlike affection and slowly sliding her hand inside his shirt. "Then I will ask them to fly away."

"No," He said, catching her hand before she could raise his shirt higher. "Not this time, love."

Daine couldn't believe her ears. "Don't you want to?" She demanded.

He hesitated – she saw that for certain, and some instinct made her loop her arms around his shoulders and crush herself against him, surrendering to the sudden fierceness of his kisses and then kissing him back with matching fire. Numair gripped her shoulders and pushed her gently back onto the bed. Perhaps he meant to push her away, but she coaxed him with kisses and light touches, drawing him down on top of her before whatever doltish idea he had made it as far as words.

He lowered his head into the crook of her shoulder and inhaled deeply, and for a moment his whole weight pressed her into the mattress. She couldn't breathe for a second, and her words caught in her throat and thundered alongside her racing heartbeat. A shred of nameless fear darted through her stomach like ice and made her loosen her arms around his shoulders. At her shiver he pushed himself up onto his elbows.

"Whether or not I want to do this," he growled, "Is not the point."

"Then what is?" Daine whispered. He caught her chin, searching her eyes for something which apparently wasn't there, because he shook his head and sat up.

"I'm not afraid," She informed him, looping her hands around her knees to hide their shaking. He choked back a laugh and buried his head in his hands.

"Aren't you?" He pushed his tangled hair back and shook his head, almost laughing. Perhaps he didn't even realise he was speaking out loud, because his voice grew quiet and he barely met her eyes. "Why not, Daine? I'm terrified."

888

 _Daine,_ the letter wrote in a hand as dainty as its writer, _I'm surprised you wrote to me, but I'm happy to give you advice._

The girl bit her lip and unrolled the tiny piece of paper a little more, absently returning the pigeon's farewell when it darted away to the village coop.

She had only sent the bird to Corus that morning, and the bird boy had called her back with a reply before she had even finished her walk. She wasn't quite sure how long she'd been wandering around the village, though. Numair had fallen asleep again after breakfast, and Daine found that she was irrationally angry about that. She told Kitten she was upset because he had lied to her about being completely healed. The dragon had shrugged dramatically and stalked off to Daine's old room with heavy footsteps.

Daine scribbled her confused thoughts into an untidy note and sent the bird to the castle before she thought about the impropriety of it. She needed advice, and Thayet was the only person who had guessed the truth. Her note was honest and much more explicit than most messages that reached the queen of Tortall. When the girl released the bird from its coot she choked on the memory of her confession and nearly called it back.

She lost some of her embarrassment walking down to the marsh farms and back up the hill, seeing the damaged and burned buildings near the edge of the forest and the wary eyes of the villagers. Some of them recognised her and called out greetings, but most of them scowled suspiciously at her crumpled dress and fine leather boots. Some even shouted vicious insults after her when she walked past.

"They think you spent the war hiding behind stone walls with the other nobles," The bird boy explained, seeing her confusion. Handing out the message cartridge, he smiled shyly and added, "They're wrong, aren't they?"

Daine shrugged and took the reply. "Seems like it doesn't matter what's true or not."

He scratched his nose. "They talk about the mages who live up in the tower and how they protect the village, but they say you're old men with grey beards down to their knees. It's stupid. Even your master's not that old."

"Don't call him that," She said instinctively. The boy reddened, and Daine forced herself to shrug. "He's not my master. He doesn't own me. Only the robed mages use that name for their teachers and I'm not..." She thought about it for a moment and laughed, wondering what kind of colour a wild mage's robe would be. Tiger striped, maybe, or green and scaled. No wonder her predecessors had left that nonsense to the Gifted mages.

At her laugh the boy laughed too, and his embarrassment faded. Daine gave him an extra copper piece and promised to return if the doves ever needed healing.

She unrolled the message in the sunshine.

 _I'm happy to give you advice. Be patient and listen to what he has to say, and make sure he listens to you in return. If he has a real reason for saying no then take it seriously. I know it's tempting to push for more – and I suspect he would let you – but I think you would both regret it afterwards._

Daine pressed her hand to her cheek, suddenly feeling ashamed and a little humiliated. She hadn't thought that she was doing anything wrong, but with Thayet's words the accusations seemed to fit. Impatient, unreasonable and pushy... what a wonderful, loving partner she was turning out to be.

Thayet had written one final paragraph.

 _Daine, since you wrote to me asking for help I hope it's not too bold of me to take the role of mother for a moment. I am a little worried for you. This is all so new to you and there are things which N won't think to talk to you about. Some things won't occur to him because he is a man, and some things he will have forgotten in the years since it was new to him. So tell him absolutely anything._

 _Tell_ him? Daine flushed at the thought of using words… what words? She had no idea if there were even names for some of the things that lovers did. Gods, she hoped not.

If there were, she thought, she was probably in love with the one man in the world who had them all memorised alphabetically. She smiled at that, because he really was that ridiculous, and that clever, and other words would do just as well really.

What else?

 _Make him talk back, don't let him call all the shots... and visit a healer, of course._

Daine actually bit her hand at that sentence. She had been so caught up in defying Baird that she had genuinely forgotten to seek out a healer of her own. Her mother would be ashamed of her. Whispering a heartfelt apology towards whichever divine ears were listening, she read the last sentence of Thayet's letter.

 _Write again if you need to – if I do not hear from you I'll assume you're more enjoyably occupied._

"You're really pink," A voice said. Daine looked up with her cheeks flaring to see that the bird boy had brought his lunch outside. Hiding the message so quickly she heard the paper tear, she struggled to her feet and faced him down defiantly.

"It's sunny out here. Hot." She planted her hands on her hips. "I don't like being spied on."

"Just checkin' you're not growing a grey beard." He returned snottily, and took a bite of apple. Daine sighed, apologised, and asked for directions to the village healer. This turned out to be an old mage with a grey beard, which made it difficult for Daine to look him in the eye, and when she whispered her reason for visiting it turned out he was also hard of hearing.

"Pregnancy charm!" She nearly yelled, and mimed her stomach swelling up while shaking her head. The man muttered something under his breath and rooted in a dusty chest. The girl cupped her hand around her ear, and he raised his mutter to a growl.

"No wedding band," He repeated, slowly and sarcastically. His expression said the unspoken word clearly: _whore_.

Daine dropped her hand from her ear and rooted in her belt purse for some money. She could only find a silver piece, which was far too much, but at that point she would have handed over solid gold to get out of the musty healer's shop more quickly.

The sweltering summer sun felt like cool water after that.

She daydreamed about returning to the healer to insist on an apology, since she was going to be married. Married? Yes; Daine imagined Numair's expression, the delighted way he would agree: "Tomorrow? Why not today?"

The silliness of that daydream made her wince, so she started again. She would push open the door of the healer's shop and say, "This is my lover, and when he touches me I feel like I'm burning up from the inside out, and until you can make us a charm we can't wear out in less than a week you don't get to say a _word_ about it." And the healer would look horrified, or maybe jealous, but he wouldn't dare look at her like a whore after that, even if Numair caught her wrist in the street and kissed her with his eyes burning like night and laid her down on the grass and...

Daine stopped walking, sighed and scrubbed her face with her hands. She fervently wished her wandering thoughts wouldn't be quite so... so salacious.

When she got home, she heard Kitten chatting happily to Numair in his study, and steeled herself for a fight. Pushing open the door, she burst out, "This middle ground is _killing_ me!"


	3. Innocence

Chapter 3: Innocence

Daine was such a peculiar mixture of experience and innocence that even her closest friends sometimes didn't know how to speak to her. From the age of seven she had confidently chipped in advice to the women who visited her mother's one-room home, and could identify most kinds of pox from the age of eight. By nine she could tell if a woman was coming to the midwife to ask for a potion or a poison for the growing life inside her. When she was ten, she wished she could forget how to see death in a woman's eyes. When she was eleven, she announced that she would rather be a pirate than a midwife. When she was twelve bandits took away that choice from her forever. Out of everything in her old life, she missed midwifery the least.

Even Numair, who usually knew Daine's thoughts before she spoke them aloud, sometimes got caught out by her uncannily adult childhood. It was worse when he assumed she must already know something, or found himself speaking to her as an experienced adult, only to realise too late that she was mortified with shame. She could deliver a calf without a second thought, but when Mari had started her monthly courses and asked Daine's advice the girl had hidden in the rider's latrine and written her best friend a shaky, curiously clinical letter. Mari still teased her about it sometimes.

Daine, aged fourteen, had been discovered in the mess hall and teased mercilessly. She protested with a red face. "I've never had to talk about that before."

"Dear Mari, I think I explained badly but if you watched the castle dogs you might see what I mean." The other girl recited from memory, and cackled a short laugh. "Is that what you'll say to your children? If you only know how to copy the dogs you might not have many."

The girl blushed furiously and fled, stammering something about feeding the ponies. Mari laughed again, a little guiltily this time, and yelped in surprise when a reproving hand fell on her shoulder. Onua didn't say a word, but her stern look was enough to stop Mari's teasing from getting any worse.

"She doesn't know any more than you do," The horse woman explained to Daine that night, stopping her on the way to her lesson. "She's only teasing you because her pride is hurt."

"So do you think I know more about breeding animals than humans, too?" Daine raised her chin stubbornly, and Onua sighed.

"I can't talk to you in this mood." She snapped. "When you grow up, you can just ask me yourself."

Whether or not Daine deliberately clung to her naivety was something her friends never worked out. While she spent a lot of time with people her own age in the Riders she outranked them, and so she was never as close to them as she was with her older friends – Onua, Alanna, Thayet and, of course, her teacher. Embarrassment or respect made her keep any questions to herself, and after a while her adopted family stopped offering their advice.

"She knows I dump buckets of water on anyone I catch rolling around in the hay," Onua shrugged, "If that's not enough of a deterrent to those cheeky stable boys I can start adding ice."

"Do you really think she would? With the horses watching and making comments in her mind all the time?" Alanna looked thoughtful, and then laughed unconsciously at the mental image. "Gods, if I'd known animals could be as smart-mouthed as her Cloud, I don't think George would have been allowed near me without setting hundreds of mouse traps and closing the shutters..."

"...but otherwise you set a wonderful example." Onua added snidely.

Alanna pulled a face at her, not bothering to pretend to be ashamed of her own colourful past. Still, she could sympathise with Daine. Daine didn't have a mother to talk to; Alanna had been entirely surrounded by men. When people gossiped about her own coming-of-age they had been wondering whose skirts Alan was lifting after the Midwinter banquet. George had a sense of humour as rock-steady as her shield, and for the first few years of their marriage he had needed it.

The lioness had a shorter fuse, which had finally exploded at Numair in Carthak. His suite had reeked of the cook-woman's sickly perfume, and even as Alanna tried to wave away Carthaki comments about that she had seen him casually leading Daine away to the same rooms. It had been difficult not to charge after them like an enraged bull, and even harder to wait until Daine had moved out of earshot.

"She'll have no reputation at all by the time she gets home!" She hissed, shaking the skinny idiot until his teeth rattled. He reddened and tried to drag himself away, but the knight had a grip like steel.

"No-one says anything at home. It didn't occur to me that..."

"Of course it didn't! And it wouldn't have occurred to her, either, but I bet everyone from here to Mindelan is gossiping about it!" Alanna let him go so suddenly he fell backwards. The next day she insisted on chaperoning the girl, ignoring her objections and the face Numair pulled. Before she left his suite, Daine's whole demeanour changed.

"You shouldn't have tried to hit him. I don't think he liked it." She muttered to her own feet. Then she darted away, and Alanna was treated to the sight of the world's most powerful mage turning beetroot red.

"Explain?"

"Ozorne." He muttered, and scratched his nose in agitation. "He heard that gossip you mentioned and jeered it at me, the slimy maggot."

"Yes, it's his fault." Alanna said shortly and sarcastically. "You tried to hit him?"

He looked away. "I thought he was keeping Daine from me. I couldn't find her."

"So what? She's not a damn puppy to be lost." The woman snapped, and regretted it when he scowled and told her to leave.

Alanna followed Daine. She decided to be diplomatic about it, hiding in military terms and asking if Daine knew she was Numair's weakness. The girl had grown up in the riders and was too well trained to hide a strategic weakness. Whether or not the problem went beyond politics became a moot point a few days later, and the older woman didn't dare ask either of the mages for more details. When they were safely back on the boat to Tortall she was too seasick to paddle through the fitful waves of their stories, and when they were home she had to return to the Swoop quite quickly. It was only when she was in her own room that her thoughts drifted back to her friends, and she seriously wondered for the first time if there was something she had missed.

"I'm the one who finds out secrets," George drawled, seeing her wrinkled brow. "You're the one who goes around startin' fights."

She threw a book at him, knowing full well that he would dodge it easily. Instead, he caught it and returned it pompously to the bookshelf. Watching him, she said aloud: "Do you think you could find out their secret, George?"

He looked levelly at her, his eyes shadowed. "Want me to cut their ears off, too?"

"Never mind." The lioness scowled and yanked her book back out of his hands.

George grinned at her cheekily and said, "If you're really worried, we could invite Daine back here to stay with Aly and learn to be a proper young lady, picking locks and breaking codes and all that."

Alanna didn't rise to his teasing, but the next day she woke up early to send a message to Daine asking if she would like to visit the Swoop for a few weeks. Before she could enchant the scrap to reappear in Corus' courier hall, there was a dull thud of magical power and she cried out, dropping the paper from numbed hands. When she picked it up again every glimmer of gift it had absorbed dripped from it like oil.

"Chaos," She whispered, horrified, and threw the scrap into the fire. By the time George woke up she had already filled a saddle bag with provisions, and before the sun had fully risen she was on her way back to Corus. The barrier between the realms, she knew, had completely gone.

888

The night before their game began, Numair had said he just wanted to kiss her goodnight, but one kiss became two, and Daine found herself lying back on the bed being thoroughly spoiled with kisses before she found the willpower to push herself away.

"You won't make me change my mind," She told him tartly. "I didn't just make this up to punish us. I thought if we stopped for a while it might help you." She flushed and looked away, wondering if Numair would be angry at her. He caught her hand and drew her into his arms but the action was chaste, the kind of embrace they'd shared as friends long before anything else. She thought back to Thayet's words – to make sure he listened, and to listen in return. Perhaps that was what he was doing, too.

"Help me with what, Daine?" He asked, and there was genuine curiosity in his words. She drew a deep breath.

"To… to prove that things are the same between us. That we've been friends for years and… and even if we never touched each other again we would still love each other. That isn't going to end. We can do this because we have the rest of our lives together, not just a few days… and I know you're scared about that. If we stopped for a day you might be able to see that the… the slow things are never going away."

Numair blushed at her stream of words and Daine knew she had stumbled across a truth, but despite his embarrassment he didn't interrupt. When she finished speaking he finally recovered his voice enough to make a joke, said in an incredulous tone. "Did you really just say 'Even if we never touched each other again'?"

"Obviously I didn't mean it like that." She folded her arms at him, pursing her lips. "I'll have you know that once you've gotten over this nonsense the slow stuff can go hang."

Numair laughed suddenly at that, his tension fading a little. "Alright," he said. "Agreed. Although I'm not sure how many slow things I'll be able to concentrate on when you're being so cruel."

She huffed a sigh. "It's only twenty four hours, you infuriating dolt."

" _Infuriating_ , am I?" He grinned lazily. "I take it you've been reading my dictionary?"

"How could I? I have it on good authority that you swallowed it."

"Sorry?" Numair crooked his head to one side, looking genuinely baffled. Daine hid a smile.

"Alanna told me that you must have swallowed a dictionary, because you keep spitting out all those long words, and they must have gotten in there _somehow."_

"My friends really are charming." He sighed tragically and nuzzled Daine's hair. "Alanna's revealing all my secrets and you won't kiss me."

"I said that starts at sunrise. If you're going to spend all your time until then whinging at me then it's your own fault if…" Daine's words were cut off in a giggle when he tickled her waist. His dancing hand moved higher, and her giggle turned into a lower, richer sound as his fingers brushed lightly across her breasts. She suddenly wanted him, yearned for him to touch her again even as she marvelled at how little it took for her body to turn to him. She twisted around, breathless, and asked with the same teasing tone as before, "Are you just going to _tickle_ me?"

"I'm very tempted, Miss Sarrasri. Leaving you wanting would be a rather fitting revenge. But I've been dying to get you into this bed for months."

"Is that right?" She made a show of looking around. "And what, pray, makes this bed so special?"

"Nothing really," He looked thoughtful, "Except for it's my own."

"Well, that just sounds like you were wanting me for yourself. That doesn't seem too concerned with being in one bed or another or even in a _building,_ if I remember our first kiss right. I don't see what the bed has to do with it."

He played with a curl of her hair. "I meant more that I'm the only person who's ever slept here before now."

"Oh," Daine bit her lip, feeling churlish for teasing him. He smiled, showing her there was nothing to feel bad for, and explained.

"When Jon gave me this rickety old tower it was close to falling down. He said if I could shore it up with my magic I might as well keep it. It was the first place that felt like a home to me since before I lived in Carthak. Not just because I earned it working with Jon, but because I had to work on it with my bare hands and my magic and my time. This room was the first place I built a fire, and the first furniture I bought was this bed. Mainly because the floor was so cold!" he bit back a laugh, "But it became my sanctuary."

"I think Kitten naps on it." Daine confided, and he looked aloof.

"I refuse to let snoring infant immortals get in the way of a perfectly good romantic sentiment. Must I be more specific, Mistress Veralidaine? You are the first bipedal human woman I have invited into my room, and you will also be the _last_ bipedal human woman I ever invite here."

"Unless we ever have a little girl." Daine pointed out absently, and she felt him tense at the idea. "Oh for the hag's sake, Numair, I was just _saying._ Stop jumping on every word I say."

"If I said something similar I suspect you would run away." He said dryly, but his tense hands slowly relaxed. "Serves me right for trying to make this into a grand gesture. This bed is the first place where I dreamed about you and realised that I was in love with you. Is that a better reason?"

"Better?" Daine blinked, "They're the same. They're both important to you, so they're important to me. But the second one is so much more sad."

"Sad?" Numair frowned, confused. "Why do you say that?"

"Because you were here, and you knew you were in love with me, and I didn't have any idea. I didn't know that you loved me, and I didn't know that I loved you, but I did…. We were a few doorways apart but it might as well have been miles. It _is_ sad."

"Imagine if we were still like that." He held her a little tighter.

"I don't want to." She ran her hand along his arm lightly. "I'm finding it hard enough to think through things that are actually happening between us. If I start imagining things as well I might just go mad. You can imagine things if you like; love, you seem to be able to keep up with this far better than I can."

"Don't be fooled," he murmured a little sheepishly. "My months of plans have turned into a list of things that are completely different from how I imagined. You're full of surprises, sweetling."

"Bad ones?" She had to ask.

"No." A short laugh: "What else did you want to talk about?"

"Why don't you want to talk about that?" Daine turned to look at him, and saw that his face held a closed-off stubbornness which she was starting to know all too well. Sighing, she kissed his cheek and then turned back away. "Numair, if you didn't think of me like some kind of precious doll then perhaps you wouldn't need to feel so protective of me."

"Telling you to go to sleep when you're tired is hardly…"

"Not that." Her voice was sharp enough to stop his placatory words in their tracks. "You know what I mean. It was bad enough when we were just friends but now I half feel like I'm being stifled."

"I don't do that." He said stiffly.

She laughed then, and the sound was a little strange. "Odds bobs, my love, I know for a fact that right now you're trying to think of how to stop me feeling upset rather than trying to solve this problem."

"Did you consider that I might not see it as a problem?"

"Yes," she said flatly, "That's why I said anything at all. You can't _see_ it. You wrap me in lamb's wool one minute and the next we can't keep our hands off each other. You make me want more and then you tell me we have to stop. I can't keep up with it. Either you know I'm strong enough to take care of myself - and we can do whatever we want without overthinking it – or you think I'm something I'm _not._ Something weak who needs watching and scolding like I'm still a child."

"You don't need to overthink anything." He returned in a distant voice.

"I learned it from you." Daine sounded mulish, "Since you overthink _everything."_

He drew a deep breath to answer her, stopped himself with an obvious effort, and then gripped her shoulders so she turned to face him.

"Daine," he said unevenly, "I don't want to fight about this. Please. I will argue with you about absolutely anything else under the sun and I will let you win, but I can't talk about this. I don't think I could… could even explain it in a way that anyone else could understand. Even you, magelet. Please, please don't look so hurt. I don't mean that you're stupid, it's just that it's not… not even words to me. I can't see it as anything other than… than _shadows_. And I have to protect you from them, because otherwise…"

"They'd hurt me?" She asked softly, and laid her palm against his cheek. "But Numair, I can already see them. They're right there." She kissed his forehead tenderly and felt him shiver.

"My shadows can't hurt you." He told her stubbornly, and Daine sighed.

"If they hurt you, that hurts me. It's simple, Numair. I don't have to overthink that to know that sooner or later it's going to tear you to shreds. You're going to have to tell me sooner or later and I'd far prefer sooner."

"Not tonight. I can't." He whispered it, and there was reluctance in his voice when he spoke again. "Daine, I'll find a way to tell you tomorrow. I promise you. I swear it."

"Alright." She murmured, and drew him closer like a child having a nightmare. Her throat felt suddenly sore, and her eyes burned. "I'm so sorry I asked. Please… please let it go. I don't want you to be unhappy."

"I'm not unhappy." Numair kissed her cheek gently. "I just wasn't expecting you to ask me that. I'm a bit off balance, that's all."

"Off balance?" She grinned at him suddenly, one eyebrow raised. "Does this mean I can finally be the one to sweep you off _your_ feet?"

"You did that months ago." His eyes twinkled at her. "I've not caught mybalance since."

"Ugh, do you write down lists of these soppy things in your spare time?"

"What on earth did you think all my books are about?" He sounded a little offended, as if she had not been able to see the obvious. Daine pulled a face.

"Spells and runes and… and five thousand different uses for opals. Magic."

"Magic? Really? In _books_?" He smiled and drew a line carefully from the hollow of her throat to the back of her neck, and then moved it slowly down her spine. Daine shivered at the touch and then drew in a sharp breath when the line of pressure sank through her shirt and pressed into her skin. It felt warm, but not like an ember or a heated stone. The warmth trembled and moved as if it were breathing, and when she moved it pressed closer to her like a living being.

"Magic has its own language, its own poetry." Numair told her, and lay back against the pillows holding her in his arms. "It's not the same thing written down in books. It's like trying to write down music – how can you write a picture of something you hear?"

"So how can you write a list about someone you love?" Daine finished, interrupting his lesson with a smile. He tweaked her nose.

"Exactly."

"And this… this magic you cast on me?"

"It's a good example, don't you think?"

"It's distracting." Daine wriggled a little and then bit her lip when the breathing spell moved into the small of her back and pulsed there with delicious warmth.

"Don't you like it?" He smiled a little shyly at her. "You said you were feeling frustrated, after all. I adapted it from a diagnostic spell the healers use for people who get burned. It stimulates nerve endings… the original spell searches quite diligently to see where they're damaged. But this version of it…" he laughed and caught her around the waist when she squeaked and writhed against him. "It's more concerned with finding out which ones are most responsive."

"Gods damn it Numair!" She laughed and then gasped in another breath when the spell moved again, "Please take it off me!"

"But I made it especially for you. You never like any of my gifts." He said mock-pathetically, and kissed her. She kissed him back breathlessly and then shook her head, torn almost desperately between pleasure and stubbornness.

"I like it, I do, but I… it's not what I want! It's not _you_! You can't… can't feel this with me, and I…"

"No, I'm definitely here," he said it playfully, but there was such an undercurrent of fire in his voice that Daine had to twist in his arms to look, to see what on earth he meant. He met her eyes heatedly and caught her face between his hands.

"Look at you." He said softly, and ran his thumb along her lower lip. "I dream about you looking like this."

"Flustered?" Daine tried to catch her breath and glare at him, but it came out wrong and he smoothed the expression away from her eyes with gentle fingers.

"Breathless, desirable..." One side of his mouth lifted in a teasing smile but the expression was marked with desire. Daine pressed a fist into her stomach where the spell had been circling as if she could force it out of her skin with pure force. Numair bit back a laugh at the exasperated expression on her face.

"I still want you with me," she entreated. He spread his hands, looking the picture of innocence.

"I'm here."

Daine shook her head in breathless frustration and leaned forward, trying to move as little as possible so the spell would stay still but needing to touch him. Catching hold of both of his hands, she lowered her head to kiss his forehead, then his cheek, then she nuzzled against his neck.

"Let me go, Daine," he whispered, fingers tensing in hers.

"Are you going to take the spell off?"

"No," he laughed wickedly and kissed her ear. "But.."

"Then you can stay trapped, master mage." Daine pulled a face at him and moved their hands together so she could hold both of his with one of her own. An idea occurred to her, and she leaned closer. "Tell me about this dream you had about me."

"Well, you come into my room, and we make love." He smirked at her expression. She released one of his hands with a petulant huff, trying to hide her blush with her other hand.

"I've had that dream too. I thought you meant something more creative."

"Oh, it really was. You came in the middle of the night and woke me up but there was nothing wrong, no battles to be fought or magic you needed to know about. You woke me up because you wanted me. In the dream I didn't think to question that." He tweaked her nose. "Although it was a good few months afterwards that I even admitted to myself that it was more than just a one-off dream that I shouldn't really be having about my little magelet."

"A one-off dream?" She didn't believe it for a second.

"Hm, well certainly no more than once a week. Most weeks." He didn't have the good grace to look embarrassed at that. Daine pretended to be appalled.

"You had this dream when I was _here?"_ She raised her eyebrows at him in mock-horror. Numair sighed and for a moment a shy honesty crossed his eyes.

"In my defence, I always woke up feeling very ashamed of myself."

Daine kissed his temple lightly, feeling the odd pulsing of a vein under her lips and realising that underneath all the teasing he was genuinely unsettled by telling her this secret. "I don't mind," she said, and a rueful expression crossed her face. "I'd tell you my dreams in exchange, but unless the Badger's in them I hardly ever remember them."

"If the Badger is in them they're probably not the kind of dreams we're talking about, anyway." His voice was dry, a little relieved. Daine smothered a giggle.

"Don't be disgusting. Besides, for all you know he can hear you."

"I would hope your family know when they shouldn't watch you, dearest." Numair ran the hand that she wasn't holding slowly up her waist, raising her shirt and letting the fabric whisper back against her skin. Daine shifted a little and her lips parted in a sigh of pleasure as his slight movement made the spell circle languorously across her ribs.

"So…" she whispered, and then rediscovered her voice. "So… you're lying here asleep, and I wake you up… what do I do next?"

"I tell you to go back to bed." He trailed his free hand along the inside of her thigh, following his fingertips with distracted eyes. Daine laughed, sounding a little rueful because of how close it was to the truth.

"You do? How rude of you! And do I?"

He met her eyes, serious. "You don't want to."

"How well you remember this dream." She straddled him and kissed his cheek when a shy blush darkened the skin. "Do I convince you to let me stay?"

"You don't say a single word." He ran gentle fingers along her lips where they curved up in a slight smile. "But you're very persuasive, my love."

"Mm." She kissed his hand and shut her eyes for a moment, feeling the spell wash over her again like delicious warm water. This time when it shifted lower she didn't fight it, but let the warmth of it guide her. She rolled her hips, moving sinuously with it and pressing against Numair with every heartbeat. He caught his breath and his hand moved to trail down her back.

"You don't have to use magic to make me want you." She whispered, slowly untying his shirt. His heart raced under her hands, and when she ducked her head down to kiss his throat she could feel it against her lips. "I love you."

"You never say that in my dream." He caught her face between his hands, stopping her from nuzzling against his chest, and raised her chin up to kiss her. She pulled back after a long, heated moment.

"I'm glad: I got to say it first. And you know that you're awake now."

"Yes," he breathed, "I am."

"So you can take this spell off me," She rested a finger on his lips to cut off his protest and laughed softly. "Please, Numair. It's driving me fair crazy and any minute now you're going to tell me to stop."

"You know me far too well." He shook his head apologetically and then smirked when she smiled and held out a hand. "Not so fast, magelet. I know for a fact that it won't be in your hand."

"I know for a fact that you're a very powerful whatchamacallit -robe mage who's making excuses."

"You like my excuses." He ran his hand through her hair and then the warmth of his fingers settled on the nape of her neck. One finger explored the shape of her collarbone, then crossed over to her opposite shoulder. "Where oh where could that spell be?"

"It's…" she started, and then he grinned at her.

"If you tell me, it'll move."

"What nonsense. It's on my back. _Oh-for-the-Hag's-sake_! Did you design this spell for your _enemies?_ "

"That would make for an unusual battle." His eyes shone with unshed laughter. "I think there's nothing else for it, Daine. I'm going to have to look for it myself."

She started laughing then, because it really was the most ridiculous thing. "Did I say I love you? I meant to say I'm going to have to murder you."

"Do it slowly and I won't complain." He ran his fingers leisurely down her spine, and something in his voice changed. "I want you to lie down, beautiful."

She did, and as soon as she was still the spell settled down to a low hum of warmth. It felt like resting in a hot tub of water after a long day. She sighed, relieved that the spell's more enthusiastic movement had stopped, and Numair smiled at her.

"Nice, isn't it? Now close your eyes."

"Is this some trick to make me fall asleep?" She asked, starting to raise herself back onto her elbows. Numair shook his head.

"Not exactly, sweet. But I know you _are_ tired, and I've been horribly unfair to you. I think you might enjoy this."

"Enjoy what?"

"Don't be so suspicious." He kissed her fleetingly, lovingly. "Just lie back and close your eyes."

"'Suspicious', says the dolt who witched me not ten minutes ago…" Daine muttered, but she obeyed. She felt long fingers smoothing her hair back from her forehead, and then they stilled and gently moved down to the neck of her dress. When he unlaced the top eyelet her eyes flew open and she raised her hands to grip his sleeves. He shook his head.

"Try not to move, sweet. If you touch me I'll need to stop." He laughed shallowly and kissed her fingertips before returning her hands to each side of her head. "Can I trust you?"

She caught his eyes warily, nodded, and her heart raced at the expression in his eyes. It was difficult to close her eyes, because she wanted to drink in that loving, tender gaze. When she finally managed to do it he kissed her eyelids and then moved away. She couldn't tell where he was until she felt warm fingers brushing across her collarbone, and then down, and gently teasing the ties on her gown apart down to her waist.

"You're so beautiful," he breathed, and lowered his head to kiss her stomach, then her breasts. His breath felt warm against her skin and she sighed and arched into his hands. She heard a soft chuckle before his hands moved again, and it suddenly wasn't a game anymore, and a low mewling sound escaped from her lips before she could even draw breath.

Daine covered her mouth with her hand, embarrassed, and felt him move it back away. "It's okay," He said, and she could only imagine the heat in his eyes that matched the note in his voice. "No-one can hear you." And then he moved one hand between her legs and whatever answer she might have made was lost. She let out another sobbing gasp and had to grip the sheets in both hands, feeling her body move instinctively, desperately, against every movement he made.

As much as she wanted the black surges of pleasure to wash over her, mixed feelings of shame and fear dragged her back, and she gasped and heard her mother's scathing voice, thick in self-disgust, _shameless hussy, giving herself to the first man who slipped his hand between her legs,_ and despite herself her eyes flew open and she choked out a sound even she barely understood.

"Let go, love." Numair kissed her forehead, and when her feverish eyes wordlessly met his own she felt an odd shiver run through her entire body. She loved him, trusted him far more than the traitor voices in her head, and when he kissed her again the fear inside her crumbled.

There was nothing left except the way it felt, the helpless way she writhed against his touch, the thoughtless note of surrender in every sound torn from her lips. His gentle movement became more demanding and the tension coiling in her stomach was painful, and frightening, and she wanted it so badly, and it grew and burst into a thousand trembling shivers and she surrendered completely. She let go and knew he would catch her when she fell.

Strong arms surrounded her, and her hands ached from gripping the sheets, and if he hadn't been holding her she would not have trusted her trembling limbs to support her weight. For a long time she couldn't speak. She felt his eyes on her as she slowly came out of the darkness, feeling tender and loving and curious. "Why did you do that?" She asked in a voice that was just as shaky as her body.

"So you know how it feels, sweet." Numair stroked her cheek and then looked away, "And so I know how it feels to take that from you."

"Take what?" She caught at his sleeve when he refused to look at her. "Numair?"

"Innocence." He met her eyes, and there was a strangely ashamed expression on his face. "It feels wrong, after so many years protecting you. I hoped it wouldn't."

"It isn't wrong. Is it?" She looked anxiously back at him. "Why did you touch me if you didn't want to?"

He laughed ruefully. "I did want to, Daine. It felt wrong _because_ I wanted it, and because it felt good to do it. Doesn't that make sense?"

"No." She sat up a little straighter, absently playing with the seam on his sleeve to hide her blush. "Only the bit about it feeling good made sense. I don't know why you're so set on protecting me. I don't need it, and besides, we're partners. That means we're equals, Numair. We protect each other."

He held her closer for a moment, and some of the darkness faded from his brow, but he didn't smile. Daine pulled a face at his implacable pride and pulled him closer, kissing him properly and rather heatedly. "Even if you had stolen from me, if I said I forgive you, would you do it again? Because right now I reckon I'd say absolutely anything you like."

He choked out a laugh and kissed her nose. "Sometimes I think your poor innocence is all in my own head."

"Write a book about it to get it _out_ of your head," She suggested, adding with some fierceness, "And then burn it."

"I've cherished it for six years, Daine." Numair brushed a curl of her hair gently back behind her ear. "Let me hold on to it for one more day. It's hard to let go."


	4. Rebuilding

People rarely asked Numair for his opinion on anything. He had a reputation for volunteering it anyway, despite having gained a lot of his knowledge from books and not experience. The things which he had experienced – the customs of Carthak, for example – were often things which he refused to talk about. With a troubled past and a careless inattentiveness to the people around him, he was generally described as uninformed, or at best, a _specialist._ When these whispers reached his ears he would resort to telling jokes from his days as a player, acting the fool to people who he could outwit in his sleep.

"Why do you do it?" Daine asked him once, seeing a silver-haired Duke shaking his head as he walked away. Numair folded his arms, looking narrowly at his friend who, like him, had enjoyed the banquet wine a little too much that evening.

"You're no different, magelet. When's the last time you mentioned raising the dead?" She shoved at him petulantly, and he rolled his eyes. "Exactly. That's how I feel when people ask me about Carthak."

"They think you're an idiot." She snapped. "And they're right!"

"Better an idiot than a..." He blearily stumbled for the right level of insult. "...short... person."

She blinked, laughed hysterically, and gave him a hug.

Alanna might have realised how much he cared about Daine when he had struck the emperor, but Numair only really accepted his changing feelings when he started feeling uncomfortable discussing his young ward with his friends. For years he had told them about her lessons, proudly boasting of her growing skill or asking for their advice on something that she struggled with. After Carthak, he found that he was keeping quiet. Jon asked him to report back on the events in the Emperor Mage's golden city, and Numair could only explain the barest details. When pressed, he finally shook his head and said that if Daine wanted them to know, she would surely tell them herself. If she didn't, he would respect her silence.

"He left the boat," Alanna explained, trying to placate Jon before he felt the insult in Numair's refusal. "Numair was the only person who went back for her."

"You risked starting a war." Jon stated through clenched teeth. Numair looked coldly back at him.

"That was the point." He explained slowly, as if the king were a child. "He knew I wouldn't sell my friend into slavery for a few months of pretend peace."

"Pretend...?" Jon stood up, blood draining from his face. "You can't possibly know that."

"Jon, those negotiations were as feeble as an infant." Alanna stood behind him and shoved down on his shoulder to make the king sit back down. "Ozorne broke them by kidnapping Daine. If we had just turned tail and fled she might still be trapped there, or worse."

"Which would have been just fine, I suppose, if it were a _real_ peace." Numair said with heavy sarcasm. Alanna glared at him, still holding Jon down.

"Don't you dare start."

"Answer me one question, Numair," Jon drawled, mixing genuine curiosity with icy disdain. "Why did you agree to go back to Carthak and risk being executed if you've got such a deep moral objection to my politics?"

"Politics can go hang." Numair spat, and rose to his feet. He had no idea why he was so furious – Jon was right, he had readily agreed to be a Tortallan bargaining piece just a few months before – but now he couldn't stomach being in the same room as the king for a moment longer. As he turned his back he didn't see the sound cuff Alanna aimed at Jon's head, nor did he hear the king's muffled curse as the punch connected, but neither detail would have particularly cheered him up.

The argument taught him two things. One, which he had suspected for a while, was that he was not cut out to be a politician. The other, which he had been in denial about, was that he loved Daine beyond rational thought.

It was a lesson which had been lurking in the shadows of jealousy for a while, and had bitten him quite sharply when they were in Carthak. The young heir... Kaddar, that was it... had been walking with Daine in the palace grounds. They made their way to the shadow of a fig tree, and Numair remembered the arrogant way the young lordling had spoken to his student. She had wrapped her arms around herself self-consciously while she listened. He read her easily: the tilt of her head that meant she was paying attention, the slight rise of her right eyebrow as she privately laughed at the man.

Numair idly thought that she was self-conscious because of her clothes, which she had been nervously fussing over since they arrived in the desert country. The thin material must have felt very exposed to someone used to the thick woollen overdresses of Galla, and the soft leather tunics of the riders. Then something else in her pose made his idle thoughts crystallise. Her hands strummed nervously against her elbows, and she was biting her lip. He didn't recognise either gesture, but he saw the way Kaddar responded to her nervousness, leaning a little too close and speaking a little too low.

 _Does she like him?_ He wondered, and scowled at his own thought. _Who could like such an arrogant little...?_

"Numair!" He turned and saw Lindhall walking towards him, a friendly smile on his face. The mage didn't say another word until he had caught Numair's elbow, and then he said in a low voice. "You're staring at the heir of Carthak. If he turns up dead tomorrow they'll skin you alive."

Numair winced and asked Lindhall if he had a few minutes spare to visit his workshop. At his old teacher's nod, he immediately raised his voice and called out to Daine to join them. It was with smug relief that he watched her leave the young man behind, because she didn't look back.

Daine described his jealousy as protectiveness. After a few months Numair had started to use that word, too. A protective person could watch over his friend without feeling guilty or intrusive. If said friend was prone to being attacked by hurrocks, ambushed by stormwings and hunted by crazed mages, then so much the better. After a few more months his jealousy became such a part of his nature that it no longer felt like a flaw.

Now, when the war was over and she didn't need protecting any more, it was a shock to Numair to hear her complain about it. How had she put it – wrapping her in lamb's wool?

She didn't understand his reluctance to take her into his bed. She already resented his jealousy, so how could he explain to her that crossing that line felt like a betrayal of every second of his protection? It was a violation of the strict rules he had unconsciously followed for years, and so it would violate her, as well. He felt the desire stirring in his body as a base, sordid perversion of a friendship they both cherished since the day they met.

Against such an assault he had only one defence: that he loved her. He loved her utterly, and completely, and she loved him back.

Gods, but he had thought she had died. The spidren captured her and she lay still in their web, and there had been blood in the dirt where thorns had caught at her skin, and he had wanted to burn the stones from the ground. And then she wasn't dead – but she was hurt, and frightened, and all of his self-disgust was eclipsed in relief and worry. He carried her out of the canyon and watched her sleep, and knew that until she awakened she needed him, and he could love her without a shred of guilt stopping his heart from aching.

When Baird released him from the healers' wing, Thayet had been waiting for him. She was too clever and worldly to have missed the desperation in Daine's pleas. She had been quite forthright about her part in the whole thing, and bluntly told him, "Daine's in love with you."

"I know." He didn't look away, and his own confession was just as matter-of-fact. "We're in love with each other."

"What will you do?" She asked. He shook his head, because he didn't know, and although he had been in too much pain to interrupt her quiet words before, he finally protested when she fixed him in her stunning blue glare and said, "Don't you dare hurt her."

"Don't you know that's the last thing I'd ever do?" He croaked, horrified that she would even think it. Thayet looked narrowly at him, and something made him keep talking. "I would rather see her love somebody else than hurt her."

The queen caught her breath, and for a moment a soft look crept across her face. "Oh, my dear," she exclaimed with a piteous expression. "We all hurt each other sooner or later. You'll have to learn how to bend to that wind, or it will break you in half."

"Don't quote poetry at me." He scowled and would have folded his arms if it didn't hurt so much. Thayet nodded an odd apology and then ducked her head in a final farewell. Numair tried not to glare after her, but he felt his fingernails sinking into the wood of the cart.

Thayet's warning was nothing, nothing at all, compared to the things he knew other people would say. No – not even other people. His own accusations were far crueller. Daine hadn't asked to hear his nightmares, but they sent him hurtling from sleep as sticky with sweat and shame as the simple dream he had shared with her.

In his nightmares Daine was an adult, soft and warm and aware, but she was sweet with youth, and looked at him with eyes which trusted him implicitly. After years of his careful training she obeyed everything he said. He had shaped her body and her mind for six years, and one command was much like another _. Breathe deeply_ or _breathe quickly, open your core_ becoming _open_ _your legs_ , and in his nightmares she obeyed him without question, without challenge, with the blank, blind trust that looked like adoration, and he sank into her body and her mind and possessed her completely.

The nightmare sent him retching to the privy, and he clung to the stone wall in cold, sweating horror at the oily mire of disgust and desire that lingered long after the dream had faded. He felt sure everyone would be able to see those images burned into his eyes. It was easier to convince Jon that he was ill than it was to say good morning to Daine the next day, and when she worriedly pressed her hand to his forehead to check for fever he shuddered at her cool touch and wondered if her affection was a watery reflection of his own love.

He had even tried to tell her once before, in the Divine Realms. She refused to believe him. Love was a 'fair wondrous' fantasy to her, and completely separate from sex in her naive mind. She was whimsically romantic about the former, and intensely curious about the latter. Numair couldn't bear to think about how easy it would be for someone to convince an innocent like Daine that she was in love.

That was the real question, wasn't it? Would Daine have thought of love on her own?

In his nightmares her love was an obligation, a grotesque lesson taught to a student who would willingly obey. Waking, he knew her mind was as stubborn as a mule's. If she wasn't completely set on a notion, he wouldn't be able to persuade her differently. Daine would have laughed at him for even trying.

Her love was a choice, and one she had freely made. Numair knew that implicitly.

He just had to believe it.


	5. Outsider

A/N: This chapter is a gift for Belbeten. Belbeten, please send me a special request so I can write you a thank-you one shot for all your lovely reviews! Everyone – thank you for your feedback, Kudos and Faves! Happy Christmas!

888

Daine returned home with the milk and cheese warm from the sun, and guessed it must be nearly soured already. Sighing at her thoughtless slow walking, she set the sweating liquid aside and poured in some flour and salt. They would have sourdough bread for a goodly while, then. The yeast bread had risen quickly in the heat, and so she broke off two chunks and slid them into the sweltering oven. It was entirely too hot to bake, and the wash of solid warmth from the oven door was far too much of a reminder of other things softly flooding over her skin. She shuddered and backed away from the range.

"Numair," She stuck her head around the door of his study, seeing he was captivated by some book he'd been dusting. It must have been nice to be so easily distracted, but she had to smile at the slow blush that spread over his cheeks when their eyes met. Keeping her voice serious, she said, "I think we should go into the village."

"Now?" He asked, not disagreeing.

She nodded, "When the bread's done. We can take some food down and work through the afternoon. There's so much that needs doing before the rains come."

They walked down to the village at their usual pace, which was quite a lot faster than the dawdling speed Daine had used less than an hour before. It was strangely awkward: because they knew they could not touch each other they walked slightly further apart than they had as friends.

Daine was half tempted to seize the man's relaxed hand, lose the game on purpose, and suffer his smug I-told-you-so in return for a sidelong look or a gentle word. Perhaps Numair felt the same, because halfway to the village he offered to carry the lunch basket, and when she handed it over they both lingered, standing less than a foot apart and smiling ruefully at each other because it might have been a hundred miles.

"You can give up, you know," Daine whispered, fiddling with the basket. "I won't crow too loudly."

"I'm still finding the right words," He replied with a pensive look, and then he added more playfully: "How slowly is your day passing, magelet?"

"I'm doing just fine." She announced archly, and let go of the handle. He grinned mischievously at her and started walking again.

They reached the village around noon and asked around the villagers to see who needed help. Many of the men and women had been steadily repairing their buildings throughout the war, only to see more damage in the final battle. Several homes had been destroyed, and families were living in barns and cellars while they rebuilt.

The most immediate danger came from the main grain storage in the northeast. A large nest of hurrocks had swept through the nearby eddies and hilltops, razing everything they passed. They had spent a night on the barn roof, resting and scraping at the roof shafts until they were bowing and near to breaking. Then, when they had left, they had spoiled most of the outdoor supplies of grain and seed. The war had taught even the proudest civilian how to live off the land, but with summer ending and bringing the threat of a serious drought, the grain needed to be rescued as soon as possible.

The locals had been shoring up the sides of the building and risking desperate sprints into the sagging building, coughing in the straw chaff and dust and often returning empty handed. Numair listened seriously, and then suggested that he support the building with his magic while they ran inside.

"You'll have to be careful," He said urgently to the gathering crowd, "If a sack is holding up some debris then for pity's sake don't touch it; I can keep the building balanced but if you rip out whatever's actually holding it up it'll just collapse."

"Then what good are you?" Someone shouted out rudely. Numair ignored them, but Daine coloured.

"If you have a better idea..." She started, and choked back the rest of her sentence at the slight shake of Numair's head.

"They're tired, and if this goes wrong they'll be hungry this winter," He said softly, letting the villagers lead the way. "Sir Ellit was killed a month ago, and until the new Lord is settled they won't even have anyone to petition for grain."

"It doesn't mean they can be rude," Daine muttered, but she knew what he was talking about.

In Snowsdale the tithing Lord was two valleys away. In hungry winters the villagers had argued over the risks of starving against the risks of leaving the village unguarded from bandits. The winter before the village burned had been very cold, very dark, and Daine's stomach had been so empty it had hurt. She had found a hare frozen in a rotting snare and brought it home, wolfing down the charred meat with her mother after their frozen hands had nearly dropped it in the blaze. They had both been miserably ill for days afterwards. They never worked out if the meat had been bad; the sensation of having food in their bellies made them feel unbearably sick.

It felt a little strange to Daine to be removed from that struggle. She and Numair would never run out of places to find shelter and food. Even if they were separated, neither of them would be turned away from the halls of their noble friends, or the camps of the Riders. It felt even more peculiar when Daine remembered that many of the inns they had stayed at in the past would readily have refused to let her stay, once they found out that her surname ended in –sri. It spoke plainly about her character; the forbidding man who glowered at them when they objected confirmed their suspicions.

But Numair was, they clearly thought, above reproach. The innkeepers respected his well-cut clothes and noble bearing, and of course his coin. The irony of that didn't escape Daine, but she held her tongue. She bore the punishment for infidelity while he carried out the crime.

That may have been why actually taking a lover didn't seem so terrible. She already knew exactly how people would look at her – because it was how they already looked. She was already different from them, above their struggle for grain but below her noble friends' political matchmaking. It was disquietingly liberating.

The only other person who didn't really fit anywhere else was Numair. He was far more comfortable wearing fine clothes and jewels than she was, after living in the palace at Carthak, but he was oddly jealous of his time spent as a travelling player. When he was away from Corus it was sometimes hard to tell that he hadn't been raised on the road.

Well, he betrayed himself: He rode terribly, complained constantly about the cold and would rather half-suffocate under a blanket than be woken up early by light from the rising sun. In her turn, Daine wobbled when she curtseyed (and often bowed instead), generally had at least two animals hiding under her skirts when she was forced to wear them, and would sometimes forget to make polite conversation with noble knights because she was more interested in talking to the castle cats.

Numair was only petty enough to point out these small indiscretions when she woke him up too early. Otherwise, they would pull faces at each other when their friends made comments, sharing their awkwardness like a private joke.

If they hadn't fallen in love, they probably would have recognised that unique outsider trait in each other eventually. But where would it have gone? Daine covered a smile at the thought of some shared, awkward spinsterhood with her best friend. Two old mages with grey hair walled up in the tower – the dove boy was right!

Well, she was absolutely determined not to let that happen.

"What's funny?" Numair asked, seeing her smile. Daine blinked a few times and then shook her head.

"Nothing."

"I shouldn't have said anything. You've stopped smiling now." He tucked his hands in his pockets forlornly, and nearly stumbled over a tuft of grass without the added balance. Daine forced herself not to laugh.

"Why – do you think I have a beautiful smile?" She asked coquettishly, and lowered her eyelashes. He nearly tripped over again, this time more from surprise at her unexpected low tone than a lack of balance. Catching his feet, he grudgingly took his hands out of his tunic.

"I was thinking more along the lines of: one of us needs to look confident about this spell."

"Should I tell them how skilful your hands are, love?" She made her voice very sweet, and grinned wickedly when he flushed bright red. Through gritted teeth, he replied,

"Not if you want to live, _dearest."_

"I'd die happy." She shrugged, and then darted away into the crowd with a peal of laughter before he could think of a reply. Keenly aware that it was his turn to get revenge, she busied herself with a group who were pulling nails out of broken timbers. They saved the ones that were still straight and sharp, and threw the twisted ones into a pail. When they had a bucketful they would send it to the blacksmith so that the metal could be reused.

"Hullo!" A voice said, and Daine saw that the dove boy had sat beside her. She smiled and returned to teasing a particularly stubborn bolt out of a knot of pine. "You're right, he's not an old man at all." The boy continued.

"No, he's not." Daine said absently, and grinned in triumph when the nail came free. The boy didn't seem to be doing much work at all, and when she glanced over Daine saw that he was looking at her speculatively. She sighed and threw the bolt into the pail. "What now?"

"Are you going to do magic, too?" The boy asked. A few people glanced over, but looked bored when Daine shook her head.

"Apart from making sure there're no nests or burrows around, there's not much my magic can do to help. If you want magic, go and watch Nu... Master Salmalin."

"You said he's not your master." The boy stuck his tongue out petulantly, and Daine resisted the urge to throw a twisted nail at him.

"It's his name, and respectful. It's like calling a knight 'Sir'. "

"But you don't call him that." The boy persisted, and pouted when Daine made a great show of ignoring him. He picked up a timber, examined it for a moment, and then gave up and folded his arms. "He's not doing magic anyway. They're all making plans and stuff, and all he's doing is standing around waiting and staring at you."

"Is he?" This was news to Daine, who hid a smile and sternly told herself not to look anywhere near Numair. She made her voice sound indifferent. "Why would he be doing that?"

"How should I know?" The boy sounded scornful, and stood up with deliberate, grumpy movements. "He looks like he thinks you're wearing a pretty dress or something, but your clothes are ugly and green so it's definitely not that."

"Thank you."

"Any time. I can ask him, if you like?" The child suddenly looked brighter, as if his nosy nature would be utterly sated in one question. Daine winced and shook her head, not wanting to get another person involved in the whole mess. It was fun when it was a private game between them; if another person got involved it would seem childish.

She smiled at the boy and told him to stand beside Numair and wait for him to use his gift. It would be very impressive, she promised, and if he stood right next to the mage he was sure to get a good view. The boy dimpled his thanks at her and ran off.

 _\- He's curious about everyone-_

A passing wild voice called out, and Daine looked up to see one of the doves fluttering down to a tree. She greeted the dumpy white bird, and then added, - _He's a messenger. It's a good job for him.-_

 _\- He doesn't read the messages. He talks to everyone who brings one, but he never looks at the words. Feeny says she doesn't think he can read. -_

Daine frowned and looked down the trail after the boy, who was chatting to someone else in the same bright way. He was probably around ten years old, but he looked a little too young with wide, guiless eyes and his endless optimistic grin. The girl asked around the circle of nail gatherers, who painted a very grim picture of the boy's life.

His mother, they said, had died when he was two or three – too young to remember anything apart from a warm embrace. When the immortals had attacked his father had joined the army, choosing to work as a paid archer rather than scratch a living out of the soil. He had left the boy with an aunt, who promptly died (in her sleep, the circle said – the lucky old hag). The boy, waiting to hear from his absent father, had started sleeping in the dove cote.

Nearly eight months had passed since then, and not a single word had been heard about the absent archer. The boy got used to the birds, and they got used to him, and he pestered every single stranger for news about the war. He was growing quite sharp, picking up on when compassionate people didn't wish to give him bad news and insisting on hearing it. As soon as the war was over, he had started crowing around the village with his chest puffed out, telling everyone that his father would soon be home.

Daine's heart bled. "What's his name?"

"Jolyon." Someone volunteered, and several people argued, and a debate began. If his name wasn't really Jolyon then he was officially re-christened before the hour was over. At one point Daine looked up to see the boy listening in, his face as impassive as if they had been discussing a stranger. She studied him through lowered lashes and saw that his eyes looked overlarge because he was too thin, not because he was young. She stood up and picked up the bucket of nails, not caring that it was only half full, and walked down the trail until she stood beside him.

"Are you hungry?" She asked. He didn't answer, but an expression of implacable pride crossed over his face. Daine hid a smile – it was exactly the same expression Numair sometimes wore when he thought he was being secretive. The boy hadn't lived for long enough to practice hiding the slight crinkling of his nose by giving it a nonchalant tug. Without bothering to ask again, she dug her share of bread out of the lunch basket and handed it to him. It smelled crisp and fresh and even her stomach growled at it. The boy snatched it and ate in ravenous mouthfuls.

"Ankoo." He mumbled around a shower of crumbs. Daine smiled at him, and kept walking.

The boy watched her with wide eyes as she headed towards the blacksmith, chewing more slowly now. He knew – which she did not – that the other mage had seen the whole thing. Jolyon expected the man to scold her or at least ask her questions, but when he stopped the woman he didn't say a word. He reached into the basket and carefully tore a second portion of bread in half, then held it out. The girl shook her head and said something, but he smiled, still silent, and waited patiently for her to accept.

Jolyon finished his bread. As he watched the mages walk side by side towards the village, his intense curiosity began to grow.

The most important mystery, of course, was whether that basket held any cheese.


	6. Burning

A/N: This chapter is for Koriat Cyredanthem, whose name is amazing... albeit rather difficult to spell. Thanks for your reviews!

888

They worked through the afternoon, and soon every man and woman who had traipsed to the barn found themselves covered in grime and splinters. They hauled and chopped at timbers, heaved up half-buried stones and even scrabbled in the dirt with their bare hands, uncovering silver claws and copper coins and crushed chips of bone. A group of old women with steel-grey hair made a murmuring circle nearby, scattering the bone meal into a mage fire which burned green, or red, or blue, as each missing man's aura was finally called home to the Dark Realms.

Numair's spell worked. He sat cross legged in the dirt and breathed evenly, his eyes open and staring unblinking at the barn. He was obviously blind to the men and women who scurried about under the strange scaffolding of rolling black light, and his lips moved sometimes in words nobody could understand. It was a simple spell, but after a few hours of holding up the sagging building his hands began to shake, and a clammy sweat dewed his skin. Daine silently brought him water and food, raising a water flask to his lips and draping a blanket around his shoulders when the afternoon began to chill. As the sky grew dark she returned every half hour or so, catching her breath from her own work, and studied his meditating face carefully.

"If you look fair set to keel over, I'm waking you up." She informed him tartly, and at her next visit she added: "It's probably not even occurred to you that you've been ill, has it?" An hour later, when she had to brush his hair back to fit a warm cap on his head, she muttered, "That doesn't count. That's just because I'm not planning on having to nurse you better all over again."

"Fair enough." He murmured, not moving a muscle. Daine jumped, and swatted at his shoulder before she huffed and strode off.

Daine figured he was slowly bringing himself out of the spell ready to let the building collapse, and so she turned her efforts towards helping the men and women who were digging through the building's cellar. It would be completely buried in falling clay bricks and timbers when the building fell, and any soft sacks or small valuables would be lost forever. She found a bag of salt on her first trip, and when she ducked inside from the evening light back into the building it took her a moment to be able to see. She was about to reshape her eyes into those of a cat when a bright flare of light lit up the stone room. A scrawny young man wedged a pitch torch into a crevasse in the dirt floor, and they kept searching in its flickering light.

The next time Daine climbed down into the basement the air felt thick and oily, and she coughed painfully before thinking to tie her handkerchief around her nose and mouth. The workers were moving sluggishly, and most of the ones who climbed out announced that they wouldn't be returning. It was getting too dark, and the room was too full of smoke, and they were tired. Daine nodded in fervent agreement to that last detail, and began digging out her last section of rotting straw.

She heard the mew before she heard the cat's wild voice. Both sounds were weak and pathetic, and her blood chilled. _Help._ She looked around frantically, rubbing her stinging eyes and peering into the darkness. Where... there! In a sudden flare of bright light, she saw the shining reflection of three pairs of eyes.

The mother cat mewed again, choking on the smoke, and the two kittens at her belly hissed at the strange human who stumbled towards them. They were too little to escape; the mother must have decided to curl herself into a gap in the wall and protect them, but now she could barely breathe and the smoke was too thick for her to see an escape route. Daine coughed out a cry and picked up the kittens, ignoring their tiny claws. She planted them into her pockets before catching up the cat in her arms. It was a large cat, one of the feral hunters who had hidden here in the cooler evenings to have her litter. The cat gaped, mouth wide as she struggled to draw breath, and managed to tell the human her name before her eyes rolled back in her head.

Daine stood up and ordered the kittens to stop squirming before they fell out of her pockets. She had to call on her magic to do it, and her head spun. The room was thick with rolling smoke – far too thick to be the simple smoke from a single torch. When she made her way back into the main part of the room she saw why: the torch, now unattended, had toppled over and set light to the straw that littered the floor. It was damp and rotten, which was the only reason why it hadn't set the timbers alight... but every second made it drier, and the ladder was beginning to char.

Daine stumbled to the base of it and balanced the unconscious cat on one shoulder, hauling herself up the ladder with her other hand. She made it to the ground floor and had to rest for a moment on all fours, choking up smoke and ash and spitting it out onto the warm floor. Then she pulled herself forwards. It was only when she looked up that she saw the wall beginning to buckle. Numair's warning span into her mind – if you rip out whatever's holding it up, it'll just collapse! With the cellar turning to dust, the walls were bowing inwards like paper.

She found a loose wooden slat in the wall and shoved the kittens through it, pushing with her gift to make them squirm away into the cool, dewed grass outside. Then she whirled, the cat still lolling in her arms, and looked desperately for an escape route. The ceiling was awash with black magic; the walls were aflame. The doorway seemed miles away. She ran for it, and felt the terrified cat tear free of her arms as the motion woke her up. Then the floor bucked under her feet, and all she knew was falling.

She felt like she was falling into the clouds. Everything seemed too soft, and hard, and warm. Then she knew that she was awake, because the world felt heavy again. Her eyes opened slowly.

He had lost the game. She thought that, before her tearful mind burst out with: _he caught me._

"I'm not hurt," She mumbled, drawing in a shuddering breath. "I just fell hard, that's all."

"Most people would call that getting hurt." Numair said dryly. The girl rolled her eyes at him and pressed a cold hand to her forehead, blinking a few times to make the fogginess go away. When she could finally see properly she frowned and stared upwards, not quite believing what she was seeing.

"Numair, I think I've hit my head." She croaked, "That cloud looming over us looks awfully like a wall."

"Oh." He glanced up as if he had forgotten, and shook his head distractedly. "No, it is a building. You didn't hit your head."

"For the hag's sake! Shouldn't we move?" Daine demanded. Perhaps she was still unconscious. He wasn't usually this stupid, and the flames looked as if they had been frozen in place. Numair, with a typical offhandedness which could only mean she was awake, shrugged. When she rolled a little onto her side to writhe away from the smouldering brick wall the man simply picked her up, ignoring her protests.

"You'll drop us!" Daine cried, and started coughing painfully.

"I'll only drop one of you, and it'll probably be the building." Numair carried her carefully outside. "As fond as I am of the old barn, on balance I like you more."

"Charmer." Daine found her voice was a little shaky, and she had to gasp in a deep breath when they were out of danger. Numair didn't say anything, but when he set her down against the next building he let her cling to his shirt while he checked her head for bruises. They had both witnessed how grim head wounds could be in the war, and the fact that she had been unconscious even for a few seconds was a worrying sign. She was unharmed, as she'd told him, but when he nodded reassuringly at her she smiled back with genuine relief.

"I would feel fair stupid," she whispered, "If we made it through a whole war just for me to fall flat on my face."

"I won't tease you if you promise to be more careful next time."

"Next time I'm digging a cat out of a burning building, you mean?"

He winced, and she felt a little churlish when she saw the seriousness in his eyes. "No. Just... try not to get hurt. I was five steps away from you, Daine. You could have called for help."

"I couldn't. You might have stopped me from helping Amber." Daine's words were barely audible, and Numair pretended he hadn't heard them.

It was simpler for the man– if a little painful – to untangle Daine's fingers from his shirt and walk away from her than it would have been to process the obstinate honesty in her voice. He would have had to unpick it. She trusted her own judgement and... he would have to admit that she was right. He would have dragged her away from the fire, or argued, and then it would have been too late for the cat. A cat. Gods, ten years ago he wouldn't even have considered it to be worth a single grazed knee.

The word was _compromised._ It sped across his mind like stinging sand, flaying his normally implacable decisiveness into a series of abject synonyms. _Undone. Confused. Blinded. Swayed._ Decaying in the rotting flesh of such words, he found the corpses of other despicable weaknesses. _Irrational, overbearing, dangerous..._

The cat was alive. It circled his feet, warm and grateful and purring, before it darted clumsily away. Why was it thanking him? He hadn't done anything – Daine hadn't even asked! Gods, he would have pulled the cat out himself, with his magic or his bare hands, if it came to that. Stopping Daine from putting herself in danger was not the same as doing nothing. He felt angry – furious. And he felt guilt at his anger, as if he were sulking in another timeline where his blind over-protectiveness had killed the damn thing.

He raised a hand towards the frozen fire and flattened his long fingers into a loose line. The flames began to flicker, slow and viscous like seeping lava. Numair watched them blaze and consume the air until they grew too hot, and then he scowled and shook his head. The flames roared up into the sky, and beneath them the building shook and squealed as even the smouldering embers were suddenly dashed away.

Crumbling, the scorched building sagged into ashes against Numair's stubborn barrier, and the warped timbers sighed and hacked like a living thing. As it decayed the soft ash moulded into the shape of the magical hold, and the townsfolk began to point and exclaim. Every dark line was clearly marked, every fold and scar delicately precise as the wall loomed above them: an enormous hand, made from ash.

Numair clenched his fist, and the hand copied him. He opened it again, raised it to his lips, and blew gently across his own palm. High above him, the dust was swept away from the hand by a sudden strong wind. The hand faded into nothing.

He felt slight fingers resting on his own, and then Daine was standing beside him and she held his hand in careful fingertips. Her voice was rough from the smoke. "You've burned your hand."

His palm stung slightly, and when he looked at it there were a few raised blisters where the giant hand had held the worst of the flames. Daine watched him carefully as he shrugged and looked away. Then she sighed, caught his elbow and tugged him away from the building. It was only then that Numair noticed that the townsfolk were backing away, watching them with fearful eyes. He swallowed and stared at the ground.

"Why do you do this to yourself?" Daine asked in a low voice.

"It's just a burn." He muttered. She laughed bitterly and let go of his arm.

"If you think for a minute that's what I'm asking, then you clearly don't know me at all."


	7. Learning

"Go on then," Daine said through gritted teeth. "Scold me. I can tell you're dying to pick a fight. If you're going to yell at me, then do it now before we get home so Kitten won't get upset."

Numair narrowed his eyes at her words but kept on walking, his eyes fixed firmly on the road in front of them. There was a bright enough moon for Daine to see the stiff set of his shoulders, and the angry tension in his hands. His silence irked her, and she felt like he was doing it on purpose. He _knew_ how much she hated it. He always absorbed her anger like a damned sponge and then, in two or three icy words, he would cut her to the quick and leave her floundering for a response. Normally she could goad him into one of his frustrated rants before he retreated into this icy calm, but tonight... ugh, tonight he was implacable.

"What crawled down your craw this week, Numair Salmalin?" She exclaimed, stopping in the road to yell at his back. "I know you're angry at me! You can't even look at me! How can I defend myself if I don't even know what we're arguing about?"

"You." He returned with a face like thunder and stopped a few feet away from her, arms folded. "We're fighting about you, Daine. Always. _Always_ you. Because you always do this. And then I always have to turn into the villain because I'm sensible enough to get _angry_ when you're just trying to make a scene."

"Who in the Black God's drawers would I make a scene to? It's the middle of the night!" She cried. He scowled, looking sour.

"Your friends are always flying around or burrowing under our feet. I guess I'd see them if the woods caught fire and they suddenly wanted you to risk your neck to save them, but I've never seen a single one of them who would crawl out of their holes and help you unless they were helping themselves, too."

"They're animals, Numair." She said with barbed impatience. "It's not their nature to..."

"Then leave them to it. Let them do what comes naturally. And maybe one day you'll read a book explaining how humans are allowed to be selfish, too!"

"Selfish?" She raised her eyebrows at him, and Numair mentally cursed himself for choosing the wrong word. He was too angry to admit his mistake, so instead he coldly said,

"I didn't know if you were familiar with the word 'altruistic', Daine."

"It means 'generous'." She spat it like a curse. "And I bet I didn't learn that from you. You wouldn't know altruism from a bee sting. And you're always leaping in to interfere before I have time to blink, so of course you never see the People. And you weren't even _there_ in Carthak when the animals brought me the keys, were you? Were you off asking Varice to weep sweet tears over your smotherin' protection, or do you only save that kind of love for people you _won't_ sleep with?"

For the first time her words had cut him, and he grew a little pale in the bluish moonlight. Daine felt suddenly sick, but before she could apologise for her thoughtless, angry words he had turned and walked away.

Daine stared at her toes for a moment. She used to stare at her bare feet when she was a child, when her stubborn temper had flared at her mother and she regretted it immediately afterwards. Now her toes were further away, shod in expensive boots. She could feel them curling guiltily inside her socks.

She walked home as slowly as she dared, and let herself into the tower through the small door which allowed animals into her old room. Chewing nervously on her thumbnail, she sat on the edge of her bed and studied the blue tapestry on the far wall. It was grey with dust, and needed beating, but that would disturb the hanging tatters which the cats had clawed out of the lower section. Daine swallowed back tears and sat back against the wall, feeling out of place and scared, as if she was a thief who had crept into this house while its real occupants slept.

Her throat burned. She knew it wasn't from the smoke. She buried her head against her knees and bit her lip.

The door creaked open, and she didn't dare to look up or even move. After a long, endless silence the bed swayed, and she felt the heavy weight of another person sitting beside her. He rested a hand on her back, and neither of them made a sound.

When he spoke, his voice was as rough as her own. It was as if he too had choked in a mouthful of ash.

"I suppose you're going to tell me I'm 'thinking too much'."

She gulped and gasped in a breath and shook her head. When he caught her hands to hold her still she untangled their fingers, shaking her head and babbling in her haste to make him understand. "Numair, can't you tell me what you're thinking? Before we fight about it, I mean? I can't keep up with your thoughts, and if you're thinking bad things about me and feeling hurt, then…"

"I don't think bad things about you." He said. His voice was soft but it broke through her clouded thoughts like water. "I don't think I could if I tried. I don't like you putting yourself in danger, but I know why you do it. I can't love you for being brave, and warm-hearted, and then blame you for acting accordingly. I just have to learn how to live with it. And you have to learn how to live with my flaws, too. Since you've always been an excellent student, I imagine you'll work out how to do that long before I do. But today... today we both disgraced ourselves."

Daine blushed and looked at the ground, feeling too hot and riddled with confused guilt. He reached a long finger under her chin, his touch light as he raised her head to meet his eyes.

"Daine," he said, "As to the second thing you accused me of... I have to try to be realistic about what's going on between us. I have to. And to do that I have to have the space to think. I don't know any other way to… to be. I know I'm slow, but I... I'm trying to think about what you might want from your life, not just the things I want, and definitely not... not ignoring all that for a cheap tumble in each others' arms."

"But you can tell me what you want instead of being so _quiet_ ," she whispered, blushing hotly at his last few words. He shook his head.

"I could, but then I'd be thinking: did you agree because it's the best thing to do, or because you want to make me happy?"

"Couldn't it be both?" She looked away for a moment. "You're not even asking me what I want, anyway, you're asking the version of me you've imagined inside your own head. That's not me."

He smiled wryly. "I didn't say it was an effective stratagem. But let's take the current dispute as an example. We've fallen in love. I could pretend it's going to be all poetry and romance, but we both know that really it's a serious problem. We've been avoiding talking about it for days and tonight you... we both used it to hurt each other. Now you ask me what I want. Can I say it in a few useless words and make all other the problems fade away?"

Daine paled. There were so many problems to choose from that his exact thoughts escaped her. He might mean the difference in their ages, or the fact that he had been her teacher, or the way that she had been his ward since she was a child. They were bad enough, but worst of all...

...worst of all, there was the fact that they both worked for their country. That had already set them against ruthless people who would target loving couples to blackmail them into committing treason. Ozorne had shown them that, back in Carthak. "Lessons in narcissism from a psychopath," as Numair had described it.

"Ozorne isn't as clever as he thinks, but by Shakith he's made being single-minded into an art. We're running around in circles protecting each other's backs and he just wades in like a blunt mace and bludgeons us all into pulp."

Daine had shivered and crossed her arms over her chest, looking down at her cup of milk nauseously. "Please don't say things like that."

"Why not?" He looked furiously around, and then balked at the expression on her face. "Gods, I'm sorry, Daine. I didn't mean you."

"I know." She lied, and curled up in the window seat so she could look out at the patrolling stormwings. The light flashed off their wings and hurt her eyes a little, so she closed them and leaned her head back against the stones. The darkness swam black and red with every gleam of light, but at least she could feel fresh air on her face.

"I won't let it happen again." Numair promised, and she heard him starting to pace again. His voice fell to a low mutter. "No matter what Jon says."

"'Let it'? I was only a few rooms away," She reminded him in a strange whisper. "I wasn't attacked or you'd've heard the fight; he drugged me. I was fair stupid to be there in the first place alone with him, that's all."

"I was stupid to leave you on your own near him. I won't leave you alone again."

"Be realistic." She opened her eyes a little and sighed at the implacable expression on his face. Gods, he meant it.

It was partly her fault, she knew. Since coming back from Carthak she had barely said two words about what had happened to her. Onua and Mari had taken turns talking to her in soft voices, as if they could coax the truth out of her like a lying child. Numair had, at least, left her alone with her silence. He watched her balk at the sounds of doors closing, and he started leaving them open. He saw her move into open spaces when the air grew too close, and he casually moved their lessons outside. He invented his own answers rather than making her relive a single moment of her imprisonment.

Not that he wasn't curious. She caught him looking at her from time to time with an expression she had never seen before. It wasn't quite anger, nor was it sympathy, but his tense shoulders and set jaw held a kind of impassioned helplessness that made Daine want to curl up and hide.

What did he expect her to do – weep? Scream? Make jokes about it? She didn't have a clue how to fracture the glass wall between her own frozen silence and the help Numair so desperately needed to give to her. Even now, when he was ranting furiously against Ozorne, he still cared about her too much to ask what the man had actually done.

Daine scolded her silent tongue. As grateful as she was to her teacher, she also felt slightly trapped by every silent question. It was as if she owed him something in return for his unconditional loyalty. A reassurance, perhaps, that the worst things in his imagination hadn't really happened. Gods, what a disgusting thought that was. She almost hated him for making him want to say the word _only._ She had _only_ been kidnapped. She had _only_ felt weak. She had _only_ been left behind...abandoned... for a few days.

She looked out of the window when she spoke and thought that if there was any justice in the world, the wind would carry her words away unheard.

"I'm scared of seeing his face again. Or hearing his voice. In my mind I hear him over and over again, asking me so nicely to drink the potion, telling me in that same sweet way that you're going to be killed..." She swallowed and then folded her arms stubbornly, suddenly wishing she hadn't said a single word. The few words she had managed to say made no sense. She glared at Numair, and he took half a step back at the anger in her words. "If I admit I'm scared will you stop looking like a bear who's been stung by a bee? You're making me nervous and I'm trying to have a nap."

"Don't you understand?" He looked frozen, bewildered at her fury. "I'm saying I'll protect you from that."

"You're being stupid. Being protected makes me even more scared." She muttered, leaning back in the window seat and shutting her eyes so she didn't have to see the expression on her friend's face. She had hurt him, and as horrible as she felt she was a little glad that finally he would feel something he hadn't simply thought himself into feeling. The indifference he had feigned in the menagerie had been a mask, she knew, but sometimes she saw it creeping back into his eyes. With such a shield he couldn't possibly understand how she felt.

He refused to let himself feel vulnerable; She felt raw.

"You scare me, Numair." She whispered. "You _terrify_ me. I look at you, and... I'll be seeing that rotten simulacrum thing kneeling down in front of that axe until the day I die."

"Don't worry about me." He said immediately. Daine glared at him, and folded her arms, and knew that he still couldn't see the hypocrisy in those words. Sighing, she turned back to the window and knew that he would never understand.

The glass reflected back the room, and for a moment she thought she saw Numair staring at her, his eyes wide and shocked in the shadows of the small room. When she looked around, he had busied himself with a book, and the conversation was definitely over. Daine decided that she had imagined the expression. She must have done, for she had never seen him wear that expression before.

They had never spoken about Carthak again. They had grown quite skilled at avoiding meaningful conversations altogether. The war had helped with that – it was hard to have a deep conversation when all you really needed to know was where to point an arrow as soon as possible.

Then the mask had shattered. Numair's thoughts were as tangled up and confused as her own had been, and she knew how horrendous that felt... But when he had been close beside her, finally admitting he was in love with her and asking – no, pleading with those same wide, vulnerable eyes – for her to see beyond the words, she had faltered.

Choking with the sudden rush of answering love in her own beating heart, she had only managed a few words: "Where's the harm in it?"

It was probably the worst thing she could possibly have asked in that moment. She wanted to kick herself the moment she'd said it.

Still, the biggest obstacle – as Daine saw it – had disappeared on that day. It was torture for Numair to admit that he was in love, but he had managed it. She returned his love with joyous ease. They couldn't take any of that back. They were stuck in their private siege, and the rest of it was just... negotiating terms.

Numair would balk at the next hurdle whether it was real or just inside his own mind. Daine figured that getting the idiot to tell her what the hurdle actually _was_ would let her know how to help him to conquer it.

It didn't occur to Daine that she thought about her friend the same way that she thought about horses. She wouldn't have thought the comparison was at all demeaning, although both the horses and Numair would probably have scoffed at it.

Anyway, the voice in her own head was not that of a horse-mistress patiently training a foal. It was skittish, and nervous, and desperate to understand something which was clouded and hazy and inches away. Numair looked uncertain, with his thoughts torn about, and Daine wished she could reach into his eyes and tear the gauze away from his hesitating mind and make him trust her completely.

 _It feels wrong to take it from you,_ he had said, and her stomach seemed to shrink into knots at the vulnerability in his voice. _I hoped it wouldn't._

But he hadn't taken anything. She would have given him far more without a moment's hesitation. Didn't he know that? Did he think he was _stealing_ from her? Gods, what did the idiot think about all day if all he came up with were stupid, stupid ideas?

"I don't want you to lie. I want you to tell me what you would want, if there weren't any problems," She begged him out loud. "Please. Anything, Numair. Don't think about it; just tell me the first thing in your head. Please."

He swallowed and squeezed her hand, caught off guard by the raw note in her voice. His voice seemed to come from miles away, but by the goddess at last he was finally saying something out loud. Each word held such a depth of honesty she could barely breathe.

"I want us to get married. I can't think of anything I'd rather do than marry you, and spend the rest of our lives together, and have beautiful children, and grow old together. That's what I want."

She froze, unable to meet his eyes for a moment, and then laughed shakily. She had brought this on herself. It was nice not to have to dig through layers of thoughts to get this far in a conversation, but still... "Children." She repeated the word back, as if testing it. "I didn't… haven't… Numair, I haven't thought about…"

"Of course you haven't. Why should you?" he touched her shoulder, stopping her from moving further away. In that gesture Daine realised he knew how she felt, and she reddened at the clumsy way she had behaved. He touched her cheek gently, and his voice was quiet. "It's just a thought, magelet. You don't have to think about it. But when I think about why we should be together, it's one of the things I do think about. I factor in things which are… are so completely irrelevant to what's really going on that you haven't needed to even consider them."

"Then should I be thinking about them, too?" Daine suppressed a shiver at the idea of having to think seriously about having children, when the world already seemed to be moving so quickly. She was relieved when Numair shook his head, taking her hand in his and engulfing her smaller fingers in a warm hold.

"Don't let me push you towards the things I want." He said quietly. "Promise me that, Daine, and I promise I'll share every stupid thought in my mind with you, if that's what you really want."

"That's what you're worried about? Pushing me?" She gaped at him, and then found herself hiding a smile, because it just seemed so idiotically simple compared to all the things she had been worried about. "Numair... are you serious?"

"Very."

"That's what's been upsetting you all this time?"

He hesitated. "I think so."

"And that's why you're trying to make me push you?"

"Am I?" He looked confused. She nodded fiercely.

"I only want to talk about the stuff we both want."

"Stuff." He smiled at the clumsy word and shrugged a little, looking embarrassed. "I've told you what I need, Daine. Everything else can take its own time. Right now, if I can make you happy, then I'll be happy."

"Well then, I refuse to be happy unless you tell me what will make you happy."

"Gods." He burst out, and then scrubbed at his face with one hand. After a few moments of stubborn silence, he tried to make a joke. "We're going around in circles. What if we... what if we started each morning with a coin toss?"

"You own a double-sided coin." She reminded him with a small smile. Numair looked as he had clearly forgotten that detail, and gave her a grudging shrug.

Daine watched his eyes skip away from her own and planted her hands on her hips. Tersely, she asked him, "Odds bobs! You don't want to decide _anything!_ Do you want me to just _tell_ you what we're going to do? Is that it?"

" _Yes."_ The word seemed to surprise him, because he looked at her with a dazed expression. Daine gaped at him, and for a long moment she couldn't even think of a single word, much less speak out loud. It felt utterly peculiar to her to be in this position. She hadn't expected him to say 'yes' -! Not when he was always the one so self-assured and full of aloof worldly advice. She often felt like slapping him for being such a know-it-all, and so naturally she had assumed that... that when it came down to it he would be just as... as...

Numair had been so confident with other women. If Daine needed any more proof that he loved her then now she had it. He couldn't treat her like any other woman, because in his eyes she was completely different to them. Daine felt a warmth in her stomach at that, but it mingled with pity now that she understood. She had been struggling because she had never been in this position before. Numair was struggling for exactly the same reason. She had thought he would tell her what to do, but he had no idea what to do next.

For the first time in her life, she looked at her friend and felt stronger than him. She didn't know if she liked it. The sudden impulse to draw him into her arms and stroke his hair, comfort him like a child and murmur into his ear, felt like a guilty, sordid urge. She instinctively pushed the impulse back. Clenching her hands into fists, she felt her nails biting into her palms and clung to the realness of it.

"The game's over." She whispered, and in the same breath: "I'll sleep here tonight."

Numair nodded, although she couldn't see it, and then she felt warm lips pressing against her forehead. He didn't say a word, but Daine threw her arms around his neck and for a long time she couldn't bear to let go. When she finally forced her arms to relax, Numair ran a gentle hand through her hair and then moved away.

Daine locked the door behind him. She never locked him out. She wasn't locking him out. She knew, in a tearing kind of way, that having a locked door between them was the only thing which would stop her from running after him. When the lock clicked closed she rested her forehead against the wooden panels and breathed in deeply.

"Numair," She murmured, a wan frown teasing at her lips. "Gods, Numair. Saving that cat is going to seem fair easy compared to working out how to help us."


	8. Playing

The key to understanding Numair, Daine decided as she lay sleepless that night, was thinking like him. How did he think? He couldn't muse the way she did, lying curled around a dozing dragon and softly speaking thoughts aloud, waiting for the encouragement of a sleepy cheep. So what would he do instead?

After Numair had left Daine had fallen asleep, exhausted by the day's work. After just a few hours her whirling thoughts had awoken her and kept her awake. She turned over, frowned, punched her pillow and finally heaved herself upright. It was no good. She couldn't fall back asleep.

It took her a few clumsy tries to get her candle lit, but when it finally sparked into life she was awake enough to yawn and rub her eyes. Then she stood up, cursing softly as her feet touched the cold floor, and opened the chest at the foot of her narrow bed. It was full of things that she hadn't touched in months – trivial things, which had no place in a war. She pushed her grandda's puppets gently to one side and dug under the layers of court dresses to the bottom, where she found a thin sheaf of paper kept flat at the base of the chest. It took her a little longer to find a stick of charcoal, and when she did it snapped and marked the fragile lacework on one of her gowns.

"Sorry, Thayet," Daine whispered unrepentantly, and closed the chest. It was a gown she had been given to take to Carthak, and it was never warm enough to wear it here. It would probably moulder in that chest before she had a chance to wear it again.

Taking her prizes back to bed, Daine made a space beside the candle and rested the paper on the table. Chewing her lip thoughtfully, she carefully wrote a title, underlined it, and began writing her list.

Inside Numair's Head

1\. Things he's actually told me

2\. Stuff he's still thinking about

3\. What he doesn't want to tell me

She frowned at the last item and slowly underlined the word 'want'. After a moment's thought, she added:

4\. Stupidly long words

5\. Books

That seemed to be everything. Daine sighed and picked up the piece of paper, absently smudging some of the charcoal dust between her fingers. Something about the third point bothered her, and after a long pause she found herself crossing it out, changing it to, '3: What he doesn't _know how to_ tell me'. That fit a lot better, she whispered to Kit, who grumbled something in her sleep and flicked an ear.

"So how do I fix that?" Daine asked, chewing on her fingernail. The dragon made no reply, and the flickering candle made it hard for her tired mind to concentrate on an answer. Every cell of her body was telling her to sleep, promising that she would find some answer in her dreams, but every time her eyes slid close Daine yanked them open.

"If the gods were going to tell us the answers in dreams, they would have shown them to us by now." She told herself, pinching the back of her hand to try to wake herself up. "We'd dream all the arguing away instead of having daft dreams about... about..."

Numair's words came back to her, describing his dream, and she blushed and turned away from Kit so the dragon wouldn't see her expression. What had he said? "You came into my room, and woke me up because you wanted me."

It had made her pull a face at him at the time, because they could both see the irony in it. He had shrugged that away, hadn't he? "In my dream I didn't think to question that".

Daine froze, and slowly looked at her piece of paper. Barely breathing, she ran her finger over the carefully thought-out words and watched the charcoal smudge. First it was a blurry line, then as she rubbed the lines disappeared entirely and all that was left was a blackened cloud on the paper. She stared at it sleepily for a moment, smiling, and then dropped the paper onto the floor.

"He really does think too much." She murmured to Kitten, who made an angry chatter at being disturbed again. Daine kissed the dragon's back apologetically, and gathered her blanket around her shoulders. "I'm sorry, Kit. You go to sleep, I won't bother you again."

She had cooked breakfast and had shaped half a batch of floury dumplings for lunch by the time Numair woke up. By then the sun had just started to rise, but she was wide awake and greeted him with a bright, "Good morning!"

He smiled sleepily and moved closer to kiss her. Daine laughed and pressed her hand to his chest, stopping him in his tracks. Planting an affectionate kiss on the end of his nose, she said, "No, love. You lost the game, remember? Didn't even make it half a day."

"I vaguely remember pulling you out of a burning building," The man looked at her narrowly, but he sounded half asleep. He looked bewildered when Daine laughed again and shook her head.

"I'll thank you properly for that after you've paid your forfeit." She said wickedly, and pretended to sigh. "Another whole day without being able to touch me. Poor you."

"But you've been touching me!" He retorted, still looking somewhat confused despite his grudging laugh. Daine raised an eyebrow.

"Me? Yesterday, you said I can do anything I like. Today, I will." She reached up and tangled her fingers in his hair, gently tugging him down until she could tease him, not quite kissing him but catching his lips and then darting away. When she spoke she let him feel her lips moving against his skin, and watched him blush. "I'm tired of your thinking game, Numair. We're going to play mine now. If you're very good I might even tell you the rules. Break them, and..." She caught his earlobe gently between her teeth, half-shocked at her own boldness, and felt her stomach tighten at the way he drew a sharp breath and closed his hands around her waist. She had to stop herself from laughing at the frozen, confused expression on his face when she drew back. Perfect.

"I don't understand," He whispered, and reached to stroke her hair. Daine did laugh then, and darted away from his touch with light-footed ease.

"Good," She declared, and grinned. "I don't want you to."

(The plan was very simple. Daine wasn't at all subtle, and as she watched Numair scratch his nose and stare thoughtfully at the floor she knew that it was for the best. She wanted to confuse him.

If years of sharing a home with her teacher had taught her anything (well, apart from all the magic...) it was how to completely baffle the man. He had a habit of making everything much more complicated than it really was. If he was presented with something that genuinely made no sense, he would twist himself into knots trying to think of a way to explain it.

Daine, being mule-headed to a fault, found it far easier to shrug off things she didn't understand. )

"So... you can touch me, but I can't touch you?" Numair asked slowly, setting some water to boil. "But surely... we'd be touching each other? So..."

"Ssh." Daine pulled a face at his back and made her voice stern. "If you keep asking questions you get an hour added to your time."

"What?" He gaped at her. "Who on earth made up _that_ rule?"

"Gods, it's not difficult! It makes perfect sense to me. Are you still asleep?" She covered a smile with her hand and took the empty pail off its hook. It was tempting to kiss his cheek on the way past, and try to soften some of the implacable stubbornness in his face, but she fought back the impulse and clutched the bucket handle a little closer.

Her voice only shook a little, thank the gods. "I'm going to get some water from the river."

Daine took her time, and when she got back Numair was dressed. The water had boiled, and tea leaves were steeping in it, and the whole kitchen was full of steam because the dolt had forgotten to open the flue properly. Normally Daine would have scowled at that, but today she hid a smile at this proof of his distracted mind.

If he was trying to work out a game which genuinely made no sense, then there would be no room in his thoughts for any problems. If he spent a day without thinking about the problems, they wouldn't bother him so much. Daine could see how his thoughts had been haunting him until he could barely speak them aloud. The more he dwelled on them, the worse they got. Teasing him mercilessly for a whole day seemed like a very entertaining way to fix that.

"The river's really nice this morning." She said, making her voice light. "We should go for a swim."

"A swim." He looked at her, not fooled for a second. Daine made her face innocent.

"Well, I'm covered in ash. Didn't you see?" She pushed her sleeves up and then, still looking serene, raised her shirt to just below her breasts. Then she turned around, nominally to let him see her back, but really to hide her grin at the way his eyes were drawn to her naked skin. "Don't you think I should go for a swim, Numair?"

"Cold water might do you some good." He said guardedly.

"I'm sure I don't know what you mean."

"I suspect you do." He returned, but when she archly met his challenging eyes he shrugged and smiled, looking intrigued. "A swim. Why not. I'll assume your insane rules don't permit you to drown me."

"You might get splashed." She admitted, and laughed when he grinned at her.

The river was still a little cold, but the morning was beginning to grow unbearably humid and by the time they had walked up the short hill to the part of the river they used, they were both looking forward to the cool waters.

It was a slow river, quite wide at its slowest points but running keenly enough down the sharp drops in the rolling hillside.

When Numair had first moved in to the tower on his own he had used water from the well, but the first time he offered some to his new student she had refused to drink the stale, metallic water.

"Are you trying to kill yourself?" She had gasped, spitting out the liquid immediately. It even smelled bad, when she cautiously raised the cup to her nose and took a sniff. "Numair, please tell me you've at least been boiling this."

"It's not that bad." He had looked a little taken aback.

Daine pulled a long-suffering face at him, forgetting the shyness which had made her feel out of place the moment she walked into her teacher's home. "No wonder you stayed as a bird for so long, if this is what you had waiting for you when you got home."

She sniffed the water again and winced, dashing it out of the open kitchen window onto the ground. For a second she had suffered a moment of guilt: the very first thing she had done upon being invited into her teacher's home was criticise it. Lowering her head in a gesture that mixed an apology with stubbornness, she muttered something about finding a clean water source and ducked out of the building.

It had taken her an hour to find and mark a good spot on the river, where they wouldn't disturb otter hollows or fishing grounds too badly by gathering there. She carefully pressed the ferns down on her way back from the river bank, making a trail and killing time. She didn't know what to expect when she got back to the tower – for all she knew, Numair could be anything from offended to ... what? Amused? She certainly didn't expect him to take her seriously. A thirteen year old couldn't tell an adult what to do. It was shockingly rude.

Daine had almost made up her mind to apologise properly when she rounded the corner, and stopped short.

Numair was standing in the small yard that joined the tower and the stables, his long travelling cloak sticking to his ankles in the misty breeze. His hands were held out in front of him, parallel to the ground, at the height of the nearby well. His eyes were closed, but when he heard Daine's footsteps he turned his head slightly.

"Stay there," he called out in his absentminded voice, and then turned back to the yard with a look of absolute focus. It was a trick that Daine hadn't mastered yet: summoning her magic without meditating still made her head spin. She watched with wide, envious eyes as the man raised one finger, and then smiled at the well.

As he raised more fingers, one after the other, the ground trembled a little. A few stones were dislodged from the ground, and Daine could hear the horses calling out fearfully to each other as spiders were shaken from the thatched stable roof. Then she forgot their voices, because the water from the well rose all the way to the surface. Unbelievably it kept rising, still in a column shape. It was brown and murky, and Daine shuddered at the thought that she'd actually swallowed some of that foul liquid.

Then Numair shook his head and flattened out his fingers again, and the water stopped rising. He whispered a word under his breath, and it burst from its shape to flow over the lip of the well. Then it stopped, perfectly calm, perfectly filling the ancient stone structure. Numair crouched to pick up some dust from the courtyard, and then rooted in his pocket for something and rubbed it together with the dust to form a waxy green powder. He sprinkled it on the water at the top of the well. As soon as the dust settled, the water went opaque and still.

"You sealed up the well?" Daine asked, tripping forward. Numair nodded, and smiled a little shyly at her. She bit back a surprised laugh and touched the frozen water, feeling how it had turned into stone. "Just like that?"

"Well, you were right. It was sour." He touched the stone himself and rubbed some of the dust from his fingers away. Daine blushed and instinctively sought refuge in her tart tongue.

"But why did you turn it into a... a table?"

He blinked, surprised, and then stood back and studied the solid well with an amused expression. "I would have collapsed it, but it goes under the building and for all I know I have a hundred secret tunnels under there... as well as some structurally essential foundation stones. If I'm being honest, I also don't actually know any well-collapsing spells. This will do, for now."

"It's perfect." She smiled and patted the well cheerfully. "I bet there aren't many people in the world who have a table growing out of their courtyard."

He gave her a quick look, trying to work out if she was making fun of him, and Daine wrapped her hands around her elbows awkwardly.

" Um, I found a good spot on the river. Do you want me to show you?"

Her first trail of footprints and broken branches lasted for a few months. It had changed over the years, as they both grew used to the short climb to the river.

In the spring they had taken machetes down to cut down reeds, laying them across their trail to make a path as the rushes dried. Then, when autumn came and the soil turned to mud, Numair had traded with a carpenter from the village to build a wooden walkway across the more marshy patches, in exchange for a spell to protect the man's workshop against fire.

When the rain turned to ice Daine had asked the animals who came to huddle in her bed at night if they would drop a pebble or two and their seed husks onto the parts of the trail that were still mud, so that the soil wouldn't slide away when the thaw came. The animals were happy to oblige, as a pebble or two didn't take much effort. After months of their help the path looked as if it had been paved.

It looked very strange to people who visited the tower. The wooden sections were spelled to resist the elements, and shone even when the surrounding trees were waxen with fungi. The stones were brightly coloured and anachronistic in the deciduous woods. The animals, especially the birds, had wanted to please their human friend. They had chosen pebbles which they liked the look of. Pieces of coastal glass, amber and blue slate lay beside unearthed rings, white shards of bone, metal fragments and even coins.

Daine didn't collect any of these oddments, even the coins, as she loved being surrounded by her friends' gifts on her daily chore. Numair had once absentmindedly picked up an emerald ring on his way to the river. Reaching the bank and promptly forgotten he was carrying anything, he had dropped it in the water.

"See if you can find it." Daine teased him six years later, on the day when they went for a swim. "If you find it and put it back on the path, I'll let you off your forfeit."

Numair tugged at his nose thoughtfully and sat down to strip off his boots. It was only when Daine added, "Without using your magic," that he rolled his eyes, realising he was being teased.

"After these twenty four hours, magelet," He grumbled, "Do I get to make up some rules?"

"If you like! I figured you'd have better things to do with your time." Daine shrugged and stripped down to her shift. Catching sight of the man out of the corner of her eye, she felt her heart warm and laughed softly. "It's so sweet of you to be looking away, Numair." Moving closer to him, she caught his hands and nestled against them for a moment, feeling strangely tender as she made the slow, affectionate gesture. "I do notice, you know. All the little things."

He freed one of his hands to stroke her hair, his fingertips circling her face with exquisite carefulness as if she were a precious porcelain Yamani doll he was admiring. Daine looked up at him for a moment, her grey eyes coloured by the morning sunlight, and for a moment her playfulness faded away leaving a look of such deep, pure...

... what was it? In the heartbeat before his hand closed around her wrist and drew that ephemeral otherness into his understanding, Daine smiled shakily and darted away. Numair looked down at his hand. It was like trying to catch a moth as it shimmered in the candlelight. He half expected his palm to be shimmering with the dust from soft, fragile wings, but of course it wasn't. He had been holding Daine, little mistress flesh-and-blood with her teasing smile and bright eyes and warm, smooth skin. Daine, who was a very solid, very _real_ person, and who had just jumped into a river and shrieked at the sudden cold.

Numair started laughing, as much at his own foolishness than her exaggerated suffering, and stripped down to his breeches. He had almost made it into the water before she splashed him, as she had promised. Daine made a disappointed noise as the cold water ran harmlessly down his shield.

"Cheat!" She yelled. Numair raised his eyebrows at her.

"I may not know any of the rules, magelet, but I refuse to let you win your game so easily!" He called back, and jumped into the river.

They swam upstream, avoiding the stronger current in the middle of the broad river and staying close to the bank on their side. Even in the lee it was still tiring to swim upriver, but after a mile or so there was a calm pool with large islands of stone in the middle, perfect for resting on and watching the surrounding forest without disturbing any of the animals. Daine used to bring her lessons here, wrapping her notebook into a spelled waterproof satchel and watching the animals as they arrived to drink... and to hunt the drinkers. It could be a savage place, for all that it looked so peaceful, and Daine had been grateful for the expanse of water in between herself and the People. She could turn her magical hearing off and simply observe.

Numair had joined her sometimes, on hot days, and would inevitably produce an inexplicably dry book from some secret pocket and lose himself in its pages. Once Daine had made the mistake of asking what he was reading, and had to fight the urge to shove him off the rock into the river after nearly an hour of tedious explanations.

They reached the rocks just as the sun rose above the trees, and pulled themselves out of the water onto the lowest rocks with sighs of relief. After the buoyant water, gravity seemed to suck at their arms and legs and make them far too heavy to lift out of the water without a great deal of effort. They found a patch of sun and lay back against the rocks, enjoying the simple pleasure of hot sunlight and soft, river-crisp air. Their work the day before had worn them out more than they had expected.

"I'm glad we did it, though." Daine added, raising her face to the sun with a sigh of happiness at its balmy warmth. "It seems strange to be doing nothing."

"Don't you have the whole day planned out?" Numair asked snidely. Daine opened one eye and then closed it.

"We're swimming." She said peacefully, "When we want to do something else we'll do that, and if we want something else after that we'll do that. I'm not thinking ahead. I'm not thinking at all." She smiled slightly and tilted her head to one side. "That's kind of the point."

"I can't help thinking." He muttered, and she heard his damp clothes rasp against the stone as he leaned back and knotted his hands behind his head. "Maybe I'm only thinking about how that shift sticks to you when it's wet, but it's still a thought."

"Change your thinking to something else," Daine suggested, with laughter lurking in her voice. "Stay in the moment with me. I'm not thinking."

"Then what are you...?" He started asking lazily, and then both eyes shot open. "Daine, what are you doing?"

"Hush." She kissed the end of his nose and then moved back to running her fingers lightly along his arms. She watched her own touch with a kind of fascination, seeing how Numair shivered or froze depending on how softly or quickly her fingers moved even in such an innocuous place as an arm.

He was unsettled by her teasing. She knew that, because it was the first time he'd really let her touch him. He had once said he enjoyed giving her pleasure – as much as being touched, but even if that were true Daine wanted to find out for herself. She wanted to find out what it felt like to be the one touching and controlling every response. And so, without conscious thought, she ran her hands along his shoulderblades and then, slightly more insistently, down his torso. His skin was still wet with the clear, sweet water from the river, and when she lowered her head to kiss his stomach she could taste the clean musk of his skin.

"Daine," he said, trying to sit up, "I don't think..."

"You're not allowed to think." She whispered, a little impatiently. He stared at her, and seemed utterly at a loss for words, so she pressed down gently on his shoulder and smiled. When he lay back down she kissed him, burying her hands in his wet hair. "Don't worry so much." She breathed. "I won't do anything I shouldn't."

"I might have to jump back into that cold water," he said guardedly, and smiled ruefully when Daine shrugged. "Why do I keep telling myself you're naive, magelet? You're clearly not."

"Perhaps you want me to be?" She suggested, and stopped his reply by pressing her fingertips to his lips. "I'm not as worldly as all that, Numair. But for the record, I wouldn't push you further than we agreed today even if I did know how."

"Push _me?"_ He echoed, looking a little taken aback. For the first time, he seemed to register that their roles had been reversed entirely, and the revelation clearly confused him.

"You look very sweet when you're confused." Daine confided in a whisper, and kissed his cheek lightly. "I should do it more often."

"It's not my favourite feeling," He pointed out, sounding a little annoyed by now. "Are you doing it on purpose, Daine?"

"What is your favourite feeling? Maybe I can help."

"I... what?" He faltered as if he had stepped off the edge of a step in the dark. Daine smiled, but hid it by lowering her head to his chest and kissing his bare skin. By the time she had introduced herself to some of the more interesting contours she found there, Numair had entirely forgotten his suspicion. Daine's thoughts had also fled her mind, but she hadn't expected that. When she brushed her lips against his stomach he shivered, and something tightened in her stomach and span giddily, like thread slowly coiling onto a spindle.

He smelled of fresh water and a hint of good soap; the river water had not quite washed away the scent of smoke that lingered on his skin from the night before. She could read his hours in a single minute, as if she had spent the night sitting fitfully awake beside him, reading books that smelled of dust and fidgeting nervously with the warmly metallic gold chain of his focus.

And then he reached down and caressed her hair, his hand heavy on her head, and his chest moved as he sighed, and even those images fled her mind. Echoing his relaxed, sleepy tenderness, she nestled her head against his shoulder and closed her eyes, letting her fingertips wander unseeing.

"That tickles," He said, and laughed. It was an open, relaxed sound that Daine suddenly realised she hadn't heard in a while.

"You," She said, kissing his neck, "Are a fair perplexing mystery to me, Numair Salmalin."

"It's mutual." He said, still laughing. When he calmed down his hand returned to her hair, stroking it gently and playing with her drying curls. Daine felt a little sleepy, and knew she could drift asleep here in the warm sun in his arms and be safe from the world... if not from sunburn. The thought made her giggle a little, and when she explained her thoughts to Numair she added: "You'd have a hard time explaining away a gap in your sunburn that looks like me."

"You've used me as a pillow before we... well, _before_." He answered in a lazy voice. Daine grinned.

"And what would you say if they asked why you were half naked?"

"I don't know. Something about you tearing my clothes off?"

"You could at least try to think of something they'd believe." She cut her eyes up at him and faked a sigh. He shrugged, his entire body moving at the gesture.

"The way you're acting today, Daine, even I have no idea what you're capable of."

"I can't tear away clothes that aren't there, clever." She sniffed haughtily and sat up. "I'm playing a game, not breaking the laws of nature."

"Oh, they're easily broken." Numair smiled mischievously and snapped his fingers. He knew by Daine's half-strangled shriek that the spell had worked, but made a show of slowly opening his eyes. Meeting her glare and very deliberately not looking anywhere else, he used his most casual voice: "I was wondering if that spell was any good."

Daine answered him with a flurry of swearing that any soldier would have been proud to adopt, ending with: "... and if you don't magic my clothes back _right now_ I swear to Shakith...!"

"I didn't break your rules." He said mildly, "I didn't touch you."

She froze, and nodded grudgingly at him, arms still wrapped around her chest. It was a defensive gesture rather than shyness, and she had to bite back laughter at the ridiculous noise she had made when her clothes had vanished into thin air.

"Alright," she said, slowly giving him a reproving smile, "So... you're playing the game back at me. I get it."

"If I admit I still don't understand this game, will you let me look?" He asked, with more mischief than actual desire in his voice. Daine pulled a face at him and shook her head.

"You've seen me naked too many times as it is." She muttered, curling up a little more and calling on her gift. She shifted her skin into a downy covering of feathers, then opened her eyes and smirked at his thwarted expression. "You're not the only one who can use their magic, you know."

"How about if I apologise?"

"How about if you let me see you naked instead?" She replied just as tartly, but with a little more strength. Numair hesitated, and suddenly seemed to become self conscious. Seeing him cross his own arms over his bare skin, Daine laughed and stood up.

"That's what I figured." She said, and dived back into the water.


	9. Beltane

By the afternoon they were both quite tired – mostly because they started watching each other's every move with hawk-like attention around noon, trying to catch the next trick, and failing utterly most of the time. Wide awake from their morning swim, they decided on their walk back to finish tidying up the mess in the tower. As soon as they got home, the game continued.

Daine had managed to sneak a few mischievous animals into Numair's study for him to find. When he had finally rescued his precious books, she innocently asked him if he remembered where his truth dust was – because she was worried it had found its way into the food they'd just eaten. It had taken Numair almost ten minutes of searching before he worked out that he was being fooled, and for the next few hours Daine teased him by asking if he felt particularly truthful today.

In return, Numair asked for lots of things on the highest shelves in the house, convinced Kitten to whistle doors locked and unlocked the moment her mother went through them, and spelled every mirror they owned so that every time the girl caught sight of her reflection, her hair appeared to be a different colour.

"I think I like having blue hair the best." Daine said, the last time she had jumped in shock at her own image. "Can you change it properly?"

He laughed and waved a hand, dispelling all the looking glasses, which shimmered briefly with his magic. "You should get one of those potions from Aly."

"I hear if you use them wrong your hair falls out."

"No, it's just if your mother is the Lioness. If she catches you using one she yanks every hair from your head."

Daine winced. "I'll pass. Poor Aly."

By the evening they were tired, and the tower was spotless. They threw themselves down in the main room and lit a fire, not needing the warmth but wanting to see the slow lick of the peaceful flames. Daine cuddled up beside Numair, too tired to bother pretending that she didn't want to. When he slid his arm around her waist and pulled her a little closer she smiled sleepily at him.

"There's a boy at the dovecote," She murmured in the gentle cracking of the flames, "Who asked me what kind of robe I had."

"I need to write to the academy again and ask." Numair replied absently, with his irritating habit of getting thoughtful rather than actually listening. Daine rolled her eyes.

"I don't care, and I told the boy that." She grinned at the look of pained patience on her teacher's face. "Whatever you say to those pompous black robes, they'll never give me a colour."

"Then why bring it up?" He asked, a little stiffly.

They had argued about Daine's education far too often. Numair had maintained for several years now that he was more than capable of training a mage, and that his student deserved formal recognition. Daine would reply that the only way an animal would get into a mage college would be if the mages were trying to set it on fire, and besides, they didn't think she had magic any more than her mother had. Her teacher would scowl or fold his arms, and ask what on earth Daine would call her gift, if not magic.

Usually by this point Daine would be far too annoyed to answer seriously. When she was a child she would make up idiotic words to throw at him. When she was older she understood that Numair wasn't actually angry at her – he was offended on her behalf. It infuriated him that she was correct: the mages at the academies would never accept her as a mage, or even allow her to try their exams. If Numair hadn't found and trained her, nobody else would have bothered. By the time she was thirteen Daine was capable of doing exceptional things, and yet as far as his (apparent) superiors were concerned, she was ungifted. Wild magic was, at best, seen as inferior. At worst, they openly mocked her, and her teacher, for dabbling in such crude and primitive witchery.

Numair took it as a personal insult. He was incapable of understanding that Daine could simply shrug off the opinion of the mage's council – a body of men and women whom he had worked half of his life to impress. Since he could not confront the council, he tended to take out his frustration on Daine herself. He imagined that he was helping her understand why she should be offended, but in reality he'd managed to make her care even less.

"You obviously don't like them," She'd pointed out, when he'd spent twenty minutes ranting about how obtuse they were being. "Why on earth would I want to impress someone you hate?" Or, when he hadn't received an answer to one of his barbed, falsely polite enquiries: "They're probably only being rude because you're too far away to set them on fire. If you're that offended you should go back to Carthak and talk to them face to face."

They reached an impasse eventually: as long as neither of them spoke about it, the other one wouldn't tell them how stupid they were being. It was a solution which they had learned from Alanna, since she applied it to most of her arguments with George. Numair, being of a more thoughtful bent, found it difficult to simply ignore something that was troubling him.

Daine didn't usually remind him unless she was particularly annoyed and wanted to share her irritation. When she brought up the boy's question she was quite cheerful, and so Numair bit back his normal retort and found out that he was genuinely curious. "What did you say to him?"

She hummed softly between her lips as she thought. "Well, I didn't really say anything. But it got me thinking – you know, about magic, and you being my teacher, and stuff."

"Stuff?" He smiled a little at her inarticulacy. The girl rolled her grey eyes and smiled back.

"Stuff. I guess it's a good enough word for the things I don't normally think about. I expect you think on it. I reckon you think about all my stuff after you've run out of your own. What have you got in your mind - a thousand solutions for a hundred questions I never bothered to make up about myself? And I think up maybe ten, and probably only one of them will surprise you, but when I find that answer it's brilliant to see you search through your thousand thoughts asking them why my answer wasn't already there."

"I can't read your mind," He replied, laughing in some surprise. "I didn't know you were going to talk about robes, for a start!"

"Oh, bother the robes. It's not about that. None of today has been about that. I just wanted you to listen to me and not the hundred imaginary Daines you have in your head. Good Daines and bad Daines and ones who love you and maybe even ones who don't."

He reddened and knotted his fingers together.

"I don't know how to make you listen," She said in such a matter-of-fact voice it was almost a joke. When she blushed a little it was clear that she was being serious, but a note of amusement crept into her voice. "I don't want to get it wrong. But then I thought, Numair always tells me when I'm getting things wrong. It's like he can't help it, correcting my meditating and even my pronouncey-thingy."

"Pronounciation." Numair muttered, proving her point by instinct and then wincing. "Why are you talking about me in the third person?"

"Thinking out loud. I wonder if correcting me makes you feel like you're forcing your wicked will on me."

He shook his head, hiding a grin. "I'm so glad you've turned my rational fears into fairy tale villainy, magelet. It's flattering. Should I also grow a pointed beard and laugh maniacally?"

"If you like," She said diffidently, and then she ran her fingers along his chin, to the nape of his neck. "But that might take weeks, and I was planning on letting you correct me a bit sooner than that."

He shivered and caught her wrist in one hand, running his thumb along the soft imprints of veins. "What do you need my help with, love?"

She watched him a little shyly, but for the first time there was a self-assured note in her voice. "I thought I'd just tell you a list, and see if you know the right answers. Like... I have brown eyes."

"They're grey." He said immediately, and caught her chin in his free hand. Searching her gaze, he smiled and kissed the end of her nose. "The first time you saw the sea you were so excited they caught the sky, and that's the first time I noticed what colour they are."

"Yours are black. I noticed 'cos they were the same colour even after you weren't a bird anymore." Daine raised an eyebrow. "It's not romantic, but it's the truth."

"Mine was true, too." He raised an eyebrow back. "I suspect that lying would defeat the object of your bizarre game."

"And what is that, clever?" When he archly refused to answer (since he still didn't have a clue) the girl relaxed and leaned her head against his shoulder. Her second question was more serious, and her voice was quiet. "You don't tell me things because you don't think I'll understand them."

He shook his head, but his correction came more slowly this time. "That's not it, sweet. It's..." He cleared his throat and stroked her hair like he was soothing a child. "You're my best friend, and for years now you've been the first person I talk to. Sometimes the only person. But of course I couldn't talk to you about everything, because... you _were_ too young, and you'd already been so hurt. With everything getting worse in the war I wanted you to have at least one place where there wasn't anything to harm you. Now I love you with all my heart, and I want to tell you everything, but in my mind there's still a little voice telling me to be careful what I say..."

"...and what you do." She finished for him, and sighed when he nodded against his hair. "Me too."

"You?" He laughed, more in surprise than amusement. Daine tapped her fingers against his chest impatiently, and he explained his laughter: "But you didn't think I was too young, surely!"

"You're such a dolt. Do you really think _any_ thirteen year old girl would come running to a grown man with her problems? What would he say? What if he _laughed?_ At that age most of us would flare up redder than a beetroot if a man even walked past us in the hallway. Gods, and Mari kept telling me how she thought you were handsome, and If you had asked me what she was giggling about I would have sunk into the ground in shame."

Her cheeks flared at even that confession, and she was suddenly very aware of the fact that she was curled up in a man's arms, and that her heart still thudded in the most bewildering rhythm when she thought about the curve of his palm around her waist. Blushing, she realised that he would be able to feel her racing heartbeat, and that she couldn't really do anything to stop it or hide it from him. Biting her lip, she tensed ready to move away.

"Don't," He murmured. He held her still and his hand gently moved through her hair. His hand was warm and calloused, and nothing at all like the smooth caress Mari had imagined. Daine sent her friend a mental snide remark, and in reply she heard the odd hollow sound of another heartbeat. It was just as fast as her own! She listened curiously, pressing her ear to his chest.

"It's strange," She whispered, trying not to laugh at her own foolishness. "No-one ever told the girls that the boys get just as unsettled."

"Men, not boys." He said, matching her amused-but-serious tone. "Being unsettled, as you so charmingly put it, is a hugely embarrassing rite of passage but afterwards we get to puff out our chests and brag about being men, now."

"So it's embarrassing, but you tell everyone anyway?"

"If you can work out the logic in that one, Daine, you'll have to tell me the answer." He shook his head. "We brag by handing women flowers and asking them to dance, writing them poetry and duelling other men over the slightest insult, and I believe every single one of us was cringing away on the inside wishing we had somewhere to hide. We play-acted love to hide the fact that we were basically just confused and lustful young men."

"And now?" She asked with a smile. He kissed her head, and she felt his lips moving against her hair.

"Now? I suppose I'm a bit older, and wiser, but still confused... and still embarrassingly lustful."

Daine shivered at the playful heat in his voice. "There's nothing stopping you from taking me into your bed right now."

She half expected him to pull away, but he had probably been expecting her to say something like that. He smiled against her hair, and moved down to kiss the side of her neck.

"You're wrong." He murmured, and there was a dark note in his voice which she had never heard before. "If there wasn't anything stopping me, Daine, we wouldn't make it as far as the bed. We'd make it to the fire, perhaps, or the rug, before I slid that pretty blue dress off your shoulders and kissed every inch of your beautiful skin until you begged me for far more, and if there was nothing stopping me I would worship you with every breath I breathed. Taking you into my bed, love, is... is not even close to what I have planned for you."

"You want me," She breathed, and clung to him tightly for a moment. "Please – Numair – if you want..."

"I do, but..." he said guardedly, not drawing away. Daine pulled a face at him.

"But... what is that annoying little voice in your head saying?" She asked, acknowledging his misgivings with some reluctance. He smiled wanly.

"Honestly? It's telling me not to hurt you."

"But it won't! Not that much. Ma told me that if it's with someone you love..." Daine burst out, and then clapped a hand over her face in mortification. Numair stroked her cheek tenderly.

"When it comes to that, sweet, I promise I'll be gentle."

"You probably meant something more... less real." Daine muttered, and watched the man shake his head.

"No, I did mean that. I meant... everything. Everything from causing you real pain to... to the way I've put you in a position where you have to keep secrets from your friends. I'm even worried about the fact that I'm worried, because I know you hate it."

"They're all little things."

"Perhaps, but when you put them all side by side there are a lot of them. Take it from an inveterate womaniser: the little things are always the ones that start to bite."

"I'm not listening to anything you say as a 'womaniser', Numair."

"I apologise. Take it from an ambassador, then."

"You're terrible at that. At least you were half-decent at being a womaniser, even if it's not really something you should be bragging about."

"Little mistress 'tell me everything' has found her limit!"

"I have not." She pretended to scratch her nose, hiding her blush behind her hand. "Go on, then: tell me about being a womaniser. What was Lady Yarissa like?"

"Honestly? Loud." He said steadily, challenging her with his eyes.

"Oh, I already knew that." Daine grinned mischievously. "I live in the next room, remember."

"Gods!" Now it was Numair's turn to flare bright red, and for a minute he couldn't meet her eyes. Apparently being overheard was just as embarrassing as overhearing him had been. Daine hid a smile, but she felt oddly relieved. It was an odd way to confess one of her guiltiest secrets, but she knew her friend well enough to wait for him to stop cursing and calm down. When he finally did, his expression was still incredulous. "How many times did you hear us?"

"I wasn't counting," She said archly, and this time she did smile. "You sounded like you were having fun."

"Listening in on people is... is..."

"It's what you taught me to do, Numair." She pointed out sweetly. "And I really couldn't help it. Like you said: she was _loud_."

"I also said you were innocent." He replied, halfway between laughter and mortification. "And all this time you were listening in on..."

"Oh, don't be daft. It's not like I was listening on purpose. Except for one time, and that was only 'cos we had a fight."

He made a choking sound, and managed to croak out, "Daine, love... how _exactly_ did your fantastic mind go from being angry at me to listening to me bed Yarissa?"

"I'm not at all sure about that myself." She replied thoughtfully. "Maybe I knew that in a few years I would find this really, really funny."

"You do." It wasn't really a question, and she answered it with the same solemnity.

"Yes. It's hilarious." She smiled then and kneeled beside him, gently sweeping her fingers under his chin and enjoying how warm his blushing skin felt beneath her fingertips. "Now then, Numair. Have I knocked your little voice off balance yet? Because I really want to tell you about the time I sneaked away to join the Beltane rites in Wyditch. If you're still thinkin' enough to interrupt me I'll give up and go back to my own room."

He made an odd noise, a kind of tearing laugh, and shook his head in a species of mocking surrender. "I won't interrupt, but I don't know if I'll believe you. You've never had a lover, Daine. I would know."

"I danced with a stranger." Daine answered in a soft voice, remembering, and the man's incredulity faded at the honesty in her eyes. The girl smiled gently and traced the outline of his face, but it was clear that she didn't need to think about her words. The story flowed from her lips as easily as honey from a jar, and in their own odd way the words bore the same kind of simple sweetness.

"We danced and danced. When the fires burned into embers I was too shy to finish the last rite, but he kissed me before I ran away. It was the first time I'd ever been kissed like that... the only time, before you. I wanted to stay but I wanted to escape, and when the fire cracked it was like a spell was broken. I ran away and hid in the woods until dawn. I flew back all sixteen miles to the stables and pretended I'd slept there all night."

"What was his name?" Numair asked, and he was surprised to find that he wasn't jealous. It was a sweet story, a secret first kiss freely given on a night when the Gods smiled benevolently on the young. Daine paused, and smiled shakily.

"I never found out." She shook her head heavily. "I didn't ask. Wyditch was razed to the ground last year, and I'll never know if he was... whether he..." She took a shallow, sharp breath, and then looked away. "I'm glad I don't know. I can't stumble across a name on some headstone and know it's him buried under it, or find myself searching for it and wondering if he's one of the ones who... who didn't even get a proper burial. But that night he was there, and I was there, and all that mattered was that we were in each other's arms.

"The fires were so hot and the air smelled like smoke, and anything could have happened if we so much as wished for it. We spun around until we were dizzy and laughed like children, but there was such a strange darkness in the night that even the stars seemed bright enough to burn our eyes. I thought I understood all of everything and nothing at all. We danced steps no-one had taught us because our bodies instinctively knew how to move, and so we moved together.

"The next day I felt drunk and useless, as if I had wasted something. The goddess blessed me, but I had spilled her blessing like... like rich wine out of a wineskin until it was empty and drained, without tasting a single drop. I wished that I had kissed the man back, and let him fill me until I drowned, but by morning the sun was shining and in the light I was... I was ashamed.

"I knew then that I didn't want the gods to use my body, I wanted to use it myself. I wanted to feel that fire with someone I loved, not someone the goddess had thrown into my arms. That sort of feeling is... is mortal, not divine. I wanted that. The _realness_ of it. I wanted the first time I gave myself to a man to be my own choice, and done for my own reasons, not because I had a god or a parent or anyone else making me think I ought."

"Numair," She finished, looking straight into his eyes, "I've given myself to you. You already have the realness of me, you just... you just keep stopping yourself from seeing it. Maybe it's not what you expected me to do, and maybe it's not even what you wanted, but it's my decision to make and I've made it. If you don't want me now then I'll gladly wait for you. In a minute I'm going to get up and leave you, and go back to my own room, and things can be the way they've always been until you're ready. But tonight I... I promised myself I wouldn't leave you until I knew you'd understood me."

He blinked, stared at his hands, and even though words were clearly racing around his mind and moving his lips, he couldn't say a word. Pale and silent, he shook his head a little, and then nodded his understanding. Daine kissed his forehead gently, more like a blessing than an embrace.

"I love you," She murmured, and left the room.


	10. Mimic

Long A/N: Haisau asked for a quick update, so here it is. Hope you all enjoy it! Also, this is NOT the last chapter! I accidentally started a plotline that's not "Aww, fluff!" and by all the gods I'm going to see it through. So, keep reading, rest assured that fluff is abundant, and thank you for your reviews! 3

And Haisau, to answer your question: yes, I'm still working on _Coming to Terms,_ don't worry – but it might be slow. I find it challenging to write about that kind of content matter (as you might imagine) and there are some weeks when I just can't face it. Ditto most of my more serious stories. I guess a lot of people write cathartically(?) so hopefully you'll forgive the delay. Xx – Viv

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Daine slept deeply that night, worn out from her last sleepless night and two very long days. Keeping Numair on his toes had been a lot more difficult than she imagined, because he was far too clever to fool for long without having to completely change her tactics. She had thought of so many scatty and bizarre ideas that day that her head spun, and she sank into her pillow thinking that her dreams could barely be more surreal. She was probably supposed to lie awake, she thought, worrying and fretting over what Numair might decide. The thought of waking up made her heart race, because with the morning would come breakfast, and she barely even knew how she would say good morning to him.

Gods, what a lie she had told him. Of course things couldn't be the same as they always had been. She wouldn't even be able to look him in the eye without wondering what he was thinking. And this time she had actually told him to think. He would go so far into his own thoughts that her friend would disappear, and by the time he emerged she might be a decrepit old lady with grey hair. She imagined that, and for a second it made her relax: yes, she would hobble over to him and mushily dribble words of affection from her toothless mouth before kissing his cheek, which would feel like a raisin by then what with all the wrinkles.

She didn't dream about that when soft darkness dragged her down. She simply slept, and her dreams were warm and empty.

Something brushed her cheek. Her eyes barely fluttered; she was so used to the animals that she simply sighed and shifted over a little on the pillow to give it more room. It tickled her skin a second time, and something traced the whorl of her ear. She slowly opened her eyes, unable to see much in the dark room.

"I didn't mean to wake you," He said softly, and his thumb stroked her cheek. Daine didn't move, half convinced this was still a dream. Numair's fingers stilled, and he sounded as if he'd bit his lip. "No, that was a lie. I wanted you to wake up but you looked so peaceful..."

"Numair," She sighed, and turned a little so she could see him. "What... why...?"

"I wanted to apologise." He sounded awkward. "And... and also... Daine, I really don't know the right words. I can't think of any that fit. I can't think of anything, really. All I know is I... I think I underestimated you. Not... not what you do, but who you are. And I know you've probably been a lot more hurt by that than you let me know."

He drew a deep breath, "So I struggled with my stories and thought that all I needed to do to... to feel right again, was to understand my own life. I never asked you about your own. I thought... I assumed that I already knew it."

"For the record," She whispered back, still not moving in case she woke up, "It took me days to realise that you would even struggle with this at all. I thought it would be the same as... as you had with the other women."

"But you're not them." He shook his head. "And it's completely different."

"I see that, now." She shut her eyes briefly, and then looked up with tears in her eyes. "What a horrible thing to think about you! I'm sorry, too."

"Come here," He gathered her up in his arms and held her tightly, stroking her back. "Don't cry, sweetling."

"I'm not!" She choked, and buried her face in his shoulder. Her voice sounded muffled. "You're just such an idiot!"

Numair rocked her for a long time, long after she finished crying and had dried her eyes. He watched her in the growing light from the window as dawn began to break. Her skin glowed from a pale, bluish shade through amber and peach, slowly adding details as the light grew brighter as if she were a simulacrum crafted by a master artist's hands. She had never looked more beautiful, he thought, and kissed her.

She reached up to touch his cheek, and for an unsteady moment Numair wondered if she would mention that blasted game again. But her fingers were gentle, and instead of pushing him away she drew him closer. One kiss became two, and he laid her back on her bed and let her coax him closer.

"Show me what to do," She whispered. He smiled, and kissed the end of her nose. She copied him, kissing him in exactly the same way, and when he looped his fingers through her hair she mimicked that, too. Laughing softly, he slowly kissed his way down her throat and caught his breath in pleasure when she did the same, finishing by running her fingers through his chest hair. It had always been a sensitive spot for him, and he felt dark heat pooling in his veins wherever her fingers drifted. Daine being Daine, she let them drift slightly lower than he was expecting, and his whole body tensed.

"Gods," He breathed in sharply despite himself, and caught Daine's mischievous eye. "Magelet," he growled, pinning her to the mattress, "You didn't cursed well copy _that!"_

She leaned up and unbelievably did it again, laughing when he caught his breath. "Yes I did. It's what you did when... when..." She flushed at the memory, and he took the chance to kiss her until she was breathless. Then, moving further down, he kissed her thigh and, raising her nightshirt, started moving upwards.

"Wait –stop," She choked and managed to gasp, laughing at the thwarted expression on Numair's face when he looked up. Choking back her shocked giggles, she asked, "How can I copy that when you... when... Numair, you're cheating! You can't touch me in places you don't even have!"

"I think you'll find I can," He informed her mischievously, and when he slid his fingers back down her body to demonstrate he laughed and kissed her, smothering her half-laughing, half-frustrated whimper. When she finally caught her breath she demanded, "Then how am I supposed to copy you?"

"You're learning, not taking dictation." Numair said in his most pompous voice, and chuckled when she swatted at him. "Think of it as a suggestion. I know how much you like to experiment, magelet."

"Experiment." She mimed anger at him, and sat up so they were on the same level. "Next you'll be telling me how you read all about this in a book, so _obviously_ you're an expert."

"How do you know I didn't? Book learning has its uses, especially as regards vocabulary... miss 'places you don't even have'."

"Are you being crude?" She wrinkled her nose, trying not to laugh at the sound of the cultured tone in his voice next to the sight of his wantonly rumpled shirt. A bright smile was her answer; she leaned closer and lowered her voice.

"I know more about anatomy than you do, clever." She pushed back on his shoulders and grinned when, with a look of surprise, he complied and let her push him down on his back.

"Are we engaging in foreplay or a contest? Just so I know." He asked lazily, resting one hand behind his head. Daine straddled him, and raised her eyebrows at his sudden groan of pleasure as she brushed against his breeches.

"A contest? Dolt. Unless you always get this excited when we fight?" She teased, unconsciously rocking against the delicious growing hardness whose heat she could feel even through her leggings. Numair choked out a laugh and caught her thighs. For a moment he held her still, still unconsciously stopping her from going further, and then he caught Daine's eyes and slowly, slowly, his fingers surrendered. For a few heartbeats Daine pressed closer, as she moved slowly up his body to find his mouth and capture it. If they had been fighting, he surrendered in those seconds, when his mouth opened and his breath mingled with her own in unsteady pants. Then, with a supreme effort, he caught her shoulder and pushed her back just far enough to look into her eyes.

"Daine," he said roughly, "If you want... if you really want to do this..."

She moved her hips down again, sinuously easing their bodies against each other. "If you even _think_ the word 'stop' at me..." She started, and he breathed out harshly.

"I'm wasn't going to! But I want... I need... " words failed him; with a growled curse he pushed himself upright and caught her around her back. She instinctively wrapped her legs around his waist, not wanting to lose the contact which made thrills of trembling heat dance through her body. He kissed her fiercely, and his hand pressed firmly against her lower back until they were crushed together. "I need you to slow down, Daine!" He growled. "Can't you tell what you're doing to me?"

"It's fair obvious!" She retorted, and then with sudden understanding she looked slightly abashed. "Wait... is this like why you told me not to touch you, when you..."

" _Exactly_ like that." He laughed and buried his head in her shoulder, unable to resist rocking her gently in his lap. A low hum of pleasure rumbled in his chest, and Daine kissed his cheek tenderly. The sound had made delicate butterflies dance in her stomach. She wondered if he felt the same kind of sensations whenever she made a sound. This way of moving was a lot more gentle than what she had been doing, and some of the blackness faded from her eyes to be replaced with exquisite shivers, as if gossamer wings were fluttering through her veins.

It didn't feel like _enough,_ though. She knew what Numair meant, why his eyes held such a torn mixture of desire and restraint. The dancing pleasure only made both of them want more.

"Are you sure you want me to slow down?" She asked breathlessly.

"Yes. I promised I'd be gentle." Numair murmured, and kissed her ear. "You're making that very difficult for me, sweetling. After the months and months hiding it and your game... I want you too much."

She shivered, smiled shyly. "I want you, too."

"I know." He kissed her then, suddenly and passionately, and when Daine opened her mouth under his insistant lips he slipped his tongue inside and deepened the kiss. The girl raised her hands to clutch at his hair, feeling his own hands fierce around her back and always, always the heat where they met. This time it was she who drew back, because he made a noise as if he were in pain, and when she caught his gaze his eyes were endlessly dark and feverish.

"Yes." She whispered, seeing the question beside the urgent demand in his eyes. He let go of her and let her move, helping her to untie her nightdress fastenings and then raising it over her head. When Daine reached to help him undress he shook his head, instead unlacing her shift and letting it hang loosely around her shoulders.

Daine felt more naked then, in the thin fabric under his heated eye, than she had at the river or when she had when she had accidentally shape-shifted in his bed. She blushed and crossed her arms over her chest, suddenly conscious of how obvious her arousal was, and how under the thin white linen her skin was flushed and her chest heaved. Sudden embarrassment made her look away.

"No," Numair said softly, and he caught her hands and unfolded her arms before pressing a brief kiss onto the inside of each wrist. "It's just me here, Daine, and I love you. Don't hide from me."

She looked across at him, and nervously reached out and loosened his shirt. He reddened but helped her to pull it over his head. Daine wondered what it was that he didn't want her to see – the faded bruises from his healing? – until she understood that he was just as shy, in his own way, as she was.

"But you've done this before," She whispered, nuzzling against his collarbone. He raised her chin with one long finger, smiling shyly.

"Not with you, love."

She kissed him sweetly and looped her bare arms around his naked shoulders, feeling through their meeting skin that he was just as warm and flushed as she was. It had embarrassed her, but seeing it on him made her heart race. Why? She had seen him flushed from exercise so many times, but... but this time she was the one who had caused it. Finding her courage, she asked, "What do I do now?"

He smiled at her and, with an odd hint of laughter in his tone, said, "Next time we do this you can choose, but this time... lie down, love."

With strange academic carefulness, Numair caught her chin when she obliged and made her meet his eyes. Although he was breathless, he had clearly thought about (practiced? – Daine had to swallow back a giggle at that thought -) these words in advance. Daine half wanted to scold him for being so practical - at such a time! "Now, sweetling, I'm going to be as slow and gentle as I can, but you're a lot smaller than me so that might not mean very much. If it hurts at all you have to promise to tell me right away."

"You're more afraid of hurting me than I am of being hurt." She whispered back, a little pertly. When he scowled she pulled a face and then kissed his nose. "Don't be such a mother hen, Numair. Alright, I promise, but I'll take it back if you don't stop looking so serious." She caught his hand and slipped it inside her shirt, loving the way his face flushed when she moved his palm over the warm curve of her breast. "How long have you been wanting me, Numair? How long have you been dreaming about me? And here I am, lying half naked under you and wanting you so badly, and you're just going to lecture me?"

He laughed and buried his face in her neck, his lips hot against her skin as he kissed her, his hands caressing her breasts. Daine caught her breath at the feel of it, and felt him tremble at the soft sound. _Well, that answers that question,_ she thought, and it was the last sensible thought she had for a while.

It felt like the Beltane blessing, but more so. More so, because the hazed mist of it came from the smoke of their own fire, and the unconscious way her eyes slid closed in sighing pleasure, and not the stinging smoke of a blaze. More so, because they both knew each others' hearts so completely that discovering the mysteries of each others' bodies was a pleasure in itself. And more so, because she gave herself to the man she loved with clear eyes and true choice, and he took her with love and respect and every ounce of the gentleness he had promised.

And she adored him more for it, for the way he held back his own pleasure until she was used to the pain, for the patient way he held her and the tender way that he spoke to her, until something he said made her laugh and relax, and the strange ache gave way to a cautious gift of pleasure. That ache never really faded – not that first time – but Daine found pleasure in their closeness and in Numair's happiness, matching his every movement with a kind of curious delight that sometimes peaked into bliss, sometimes ebbed back away from it, but always burned sweetly in her blood.

When he first entered her body he cried out, and the sound sent warmth shivering down her spine which lingered there, making her tense with sweet rolling waves of throbbing heat, until long, delicious minutes later when he kissed her fiercely and cried out a second time, holding her so tightly she couldn't breathe. Her body answered with a rippling shudder, a pale whispering promise of more, but even though the feeling was frail it still made her catch her breath and bury her head against Numair's chest.

"Numair," she whispered, stretching out her arms as if she could pull him even closer, unable to catch her breath enough to say another word but hearing her own panted sounds of pleasure as if they had burst from someone else's lips. He raised his head, stroked her hair with a heavy hand and kissed her temple, apologetically tender after the rough way he had clutched at her.

"I can't bear to let you go," He nestled against her hair, rested his forehead against her own. "Daine..."

"You don't have to." Her breath hitched at the vulnerability in his voice. They were so close that she could hear his heart beating, and the uneven breaths they were both still taking. When she ran her lips over his cheek she tasted salt and wondered why their mingling tears didn't taste sweet. There was nothing bitter about weeping such happy tears. Her own cheeks grew wet, and as they kissed each other again and again she couldn't tell where her tears or her body ended and his own began.

He began to move away once, sheepishly murmuring something about squashing her, but she clutched at him and pulled him back. She didn't want to lose the sense of finally sharing one body with the man who already shared her heart. Numair smiled and pushed himself onto his elbows instead, looking down at her and smoothing her tangled hair into neatness.

"It didn't hurt too much, did it?" He asked in a very low voice. Daine would have been irritated at that an hour ago, but instead she just gently brushed her knuckles over the ridge of his nose.

"It was nice." She smiled and blushed a little at his concern. "And it's done, now. Next time you won't have to be worried."

"Next time we'll do a lot better than just 'nice'." He promised, with some determination. Daine giggled and covered the expression with one hand.

"You know I'm bad at words. I didn't mean just nice. That was... was..." She struggled for a word, and made the mistake of looking straight into his black eyes. For a moment her breath caught at the expression he wore, and she unconsciously ran her hand through his hair, smiling rather foolishly and forgetting that she had been speaking at all.

Numair kissed her softly, still holding her close but with gentle, tender hands now. When they finally drew back his eyes were dancing, and he raised a teasing eyebrow. "You don't need to assuage me with your synonyms, sweet. Especially since you can't actually think of any. I'll take your incoherence as a good sign. A _nice_ sign."

He ran out of breath by the end of that speech, and Daine giggled and pulled him closer for a kiss. "I really do love you, Numair."

"That's good, since I'm not letting you leave this room until that _nice_ becomes, at the very least..."

"...breathtaking?" She finished for him, having found a word. He looked aloof.

"You have such low expectations, magelet. I'll have to enlighten you. Again, and again, and again..."

She smiled openly, and drew him down to kiss her with wanton, sinuous greed. "Oh please, please do."


	11. Stray

The boy rapped at the kitchen door and then stood, pursing his lips and tapping his foot like an old man as the moss-softened wood stayed obstinately closed. The sun was beating down so fiercely that even the shade felt like an oven, and yet the door was closed! He wondered if mages had some special magic which kept them cool in the summer. If they did, he thought a little snidely, then they should be generous and share it with people who needed it. Specifically, he thought, they should give them to people who worked in hot wooden dovecotes half the day, and ran around the dusty streets for the other half.

He knocked again, and this time there was an answering noise. He looked expectantly at the door, but it did not open. His eyes drifted upwards to one of the lead-gabled windows, and widened. A small, scaled creature was peering through. Her opalescent eyes were as curious as the boy's, but unlike him, the dragon looked quite cool and comfortable. Jolyon was decidedly _un_ comfortable, and so he swallowed back his pride and spoke to the animal.

"I have a message, and also it's as hot as Mithros' throbbin' spear out here. Let me in."

The dragon peeped a note at him, and then glanced back into the kitchen. If anything, she looked uncertain. Then an obstinate look set itself on her reptilian face, and she whistled a note. The door clicked, and swung open. The dragon watched him walk in with narrowed eyes, chuckled an approving note when he shucked off his dusty boots, and then ran away into the depths of the tower, presumably to pass on his message.

A swarm of cats and dogs came to greet him, and then shied away from the bright ray of sunlight the door let in. They fled back to their spot beside the pantry. There, in the cool stone belly of the tower, they looked almost chilled. The fire was unlit, but a fresh pail of water hung beside the sink. Jolyon dipped himself out a cupful and sat down with the cats, deciding to finish it off before he took another step.

A noise made him pause and look towards the inner door. It had clicked closed after the dragon, but sounds still crept through the slivers of air between stonework and timber. For a moment he couldn't place the sounds, and the cats began mewing and hissing around him as if they wanted to distract him. That made the boy even more curious, and he listened more attentively. A deep blush flooded over his cheeks as he recognised the unmistakable sounds of lovemaking.

Jolyon wondered if he should try to sneak away, but he remembered the dragon's sly look. He realised that the creature had let him in on purpose, knowing that he couldn't help overhearing.

He cringed into his palms, and then found himself laughing. Why was he embarrassed? He heard people from the village all the time, in their small huts, sweating and groaning and swearing as they rutted together. Everyone teased newlyweds about their simple smiles and absentminded clumsiness, even the children. Jolyon was more likely to be embarrassed by his own unbuttoned breeches than by walking in on someone.

 _But I didn't know about her and her master._ He worked out, and petted one of the cats with a wry smile. _I'm embarrassed 'cos I didn't know. Now I do know, so they ain't got nothing to hide from me._

The sounds grew louder, and then, after a loud, gasping cry, they faded. Jolyon found a crust of bread and munched hungrily on it, bored with waiting. He heard the dragon whistling in the other room and then answering voices – enquiring, and then slightly raised, and then a brief argument. After a few more minutes where the boy was beginning to look around for a pot of jam, the door opened and the girl stepped through. She looked almost too composed, although her hastily-gathered curls were in a tangled mess which would take hours to comb out. The dragon streamed in by her feet, looking smug.

"So it's you! What are you doing here?" The girl demanded almost immediately, fussing nervously with her left sleeve. Jolyon stood up and belched, then brushed crumbs off his knees. The cats below him complained at the unleavened rain.

"Got a message for your master."

"I already told you twice. He's not..."

"Sounds like he's masterin' _something,_ miss."

She flushed scarlet and held out a hand, trying to look imperious and instead only just failing to look mortified with embarrassment. "I... I'll take it."

"Can't do that. Got to hand it over myself." The boy lied, enjoying watching this performance. Daine snatched her hand back as if he had burned it, and glared at him as if she knew exactly what he was doing. It didn't help matters that the dragon was sitting amongst the cats, looking from human to human with that same smug look on her face.

"Fine." Daine snapped, and whirled on her foot. The door slammed behind her, and the cats had barely finished complaining about the noise before it opened again and a man stepped through. Jolyon stood up a little straighter, because he was nervous of this man with his imposing black eyes. Even though he was several feet taller than the boy, the mage refused to stoop. Instead, he looked down his long nose and folded his arms.

"Who's the message from, lad, that you have to hand it over personally?" He asked. Jolyon blinked. The man's voice was surprisingly humorous.

"It's from the palace. Corus." He muttered, and rooted in his pocket for it. "All your messages are from there, I know, sir. But because of the war... and your lady coming to send all those messages this week... I figured it might be urgent."

"She did?" The man asked, and for a moment his sternness seemed diminished as he looked towards the door. The boy carefully filed away the mage's expression for later, and made his own face innocent as he nodded.

"Yessir. To her majesty, she said."

"Huh." If anything, the man sounded intrigued. He knelt down beside Jolyon and took the message with a polite nod of thanks. The boy returned the bow more deeply, relieved beyond words that this forbidding man didn't share Daine's quick temper. His respect turned into a deep belly-laugh when the man reached behind his ear and produced a silver piece.

"Thank you, sir." He babbled, wondering if the man knew that his fee was only supposed to be a copper. He might ask for change! But the mage smiled and gestured around the kitchen.

"Help yourself to as much food as you like. It's a long walk back and we hardly eat anything in the summer. Here." He rooted in a cupboard and produced a basket which was twice the size of a normal family's market basket. "Fill this up."

Jolyon gaped. "All of it?"

"Don't argue. I'm trying to read." The man said severely, and then sat down at the kitchen table to unroll his message. Unable to believe his good luck, the boy darted from cupboard to cupboard and filled the basket to bursting with bread, flour, eggs, cheese and even a jar of plum jam. He wondered if it were a bribe, or something, but that thought fled his mind when he recalled the way they had shared their bread with him on the night of the fire. Perhaps they were just careless about their wealth.

At his feet, the dragon whistled a note. He looked down at the same time the mage looked up.

"Your mother wants a word with you, Kit." The man said in a dark tone. The creature hooted derisively, and then caught sight of his glare. Walking with slow, plodding steps, she headed towards the kitchen door and then, looking unrepentant, darted out of the open window instead into the sunlight.

The mage shook his head wearily when Jolyon asked if he should chase her. "No need. She'll be back."

"I asked her to let me in," The boy explained awkwardly. The man gave him a level look, and then shrugged.

"If I asked you to burn my house down I hope you would say no. You would know it was the wrong thing to do. Kit's too old to pretend she doesn't know when she's up to mischief. She's been sulking for days, so I'm not surprised she did it... but that doesn't mean she can get away with it."

"No harm done." Jolyon shrugged it off with boyish indifference, and missed the momentary worry in the mage's expression.

"Not yet, no."

"Oh." The boy dropped some trail biscuits into the basket and scuffed his feet against the floor. "But the people in the village don't know anything about you, so even if I told them then they'd just think you were properly married. If I told them they wouldn't think there was anything bad about what you're doing. If I keep it secret they'll know that you're..."

"That's enough," The man held up a hand. "You are going to demonstrate the alternative option: that if you keep it secret enough, _no-one will ever know that you even have a secret to tell."_

"But that's no fun." Jolyon said rather plaintively. The mage looked forbidding.

"Do you want to hear the _other_ alternative?"

"You can't scare me!" The child lied. The man smiled slowly, showing teeth.

"No, but the beautiful lady- who you just embarrassed in her own home - can. She'll ask your pigeons for every secret you have, since Kit showed you ours."

"Pigeons can barely work out where I keep their grain." The boy smirked arrogantly. "I bet they can't remember anything."

There was a soft laugh, and a small hand appeared on the mage's shoulder. "I told you he was clever," Daine said, hiding another laugh.

As soon as she spoke the man's whole bearing changed. He went from being a cool, distant figure to relaxing, his obsidian eyes warming as he looked around, his still face softening into a smile. Jolyon wondered if he had even shrunk. Daine was not much taller than he himself, and the mage dwarfed him. Next to his lover, the man seemed to fit perfectly.

"It's not a secret, anyway." The girl continued, her fingers tightening on the mage's shoulder when he frowned at her. She glanced at him, smiled briefly, and looked back at the boy with a shrug. "We just don't want everyone gossiping about us."

"Your animals are," The boy pointed out, thinking of the dragon. Daine flashed him a bright smile, suddenly looking entertained.

"Well, how about we let the cats spread the word, and when the humans finally overhear them talkin' you can join in. Do you want some lunch, Jolyon?"

He blinked at the change of subject, and before he knew it he was sitting down at the kitchen table peeling potatoes while the two adults busied themselves plucking a chicken and digging up scorched vegetables from the garden.

For a while the child sat with tense, squared shoulders. He half expected them to snap at him, or suddenly change their minds, or order him to heave heavy buckets of water from their rainbarrels like a servant. But they did nothing of the sort. When they were in the kitchen they made jokes about the hot stove and the parched garden like any of the people from the town.

As soon as the food was in the stew pot they found a flagon of juice and left the hot kitchen. They all sat down together in the shade by the north wall. Jolyon reached thirstily for the drink, and froze when Daine shook her head and handed it to the mage.

"It's a waste of magic," he said with baited words, as if he were giving an oft-repeated speech. The girl leaned back against the stone wall and closed her eyes.

"You have far too much energy, love. I know as well as you do that you could do this in your sleep. And it's _hot!_ "

He laughed shortly and pressed his hand to the edge of the flagon. "There." He said, and gave it back to the boy. Jolyon nearly dropped it - the flagon was ice cold. He drank in delight, not noticing the smile which both adults shared as they watched him.

"I knew I kept you around for a reason." Daine told the man pertly. He grinned and caught up her hand to kiss her fingertips.

"Because I have too much energy? Or because I know how to use it?"

"Two reasons." She amended, with a slow smile. Taking the flask from Jolyon with a smile of thanks, she took a large gulp and handed it on to the man. "What did the message say?"

Numair glanced at Jolyon, who scowled back. "Don't ask me. I didn't read it! I can't..." he blushed and clapped a hand over his mouth. The mage's expression transformed from speculative into horrified.

"You can't read?"

"You're getting distracted, love." Daine pointed out, trying to save the boy's embarrassment. Numair shook his head, misunderstanding her irritation.

"No, I'll tell you later, magelet. Right now... boy, tell me the truth. Can you read?"

"My name, sir," the child said stiffly, "Is Jolyon."

"That's a no." Daine translated, and caught Numair's wrist."Please don't fuss. You're insulting him."

"Only stuck up posh noble idiots read. The rest of us can remember stuff using our heads, not bits of paper." Jolyon sniffed and folded his arms. Numair looked thunderous. Daine rolled her eyes at both of them. Obviously, trying to waylay this argument was a waste of time.

"Well, now you're just insulting each other. I'll leave you to it." She climbed to her feet and stalked into the kitchen to check the stew. Just before she left, Numair caught her arm and handed her the scrap of paper Jolyon had delivered. Daine flashed him a brief smile and then shook her arm free, giving them both an apprehensive look as she left.

"First your dragon, now your student." Jolyon belched rudely. "Does everyone here end up running away from you?"

Numair ignored the gibe and steepled his fingers before his nose. "I've not been abandoned. You, on the other hand... Daine told me your father has yet to return from the war."

The boy paled and raw pain flickered in his eyes. "You're not allowed to talk about my da."

"Someone has to." The man covered his face with his hand as if he were thinking deeply. "I'm not trying to offend you, boy. Daine wanted to speak to you herself, but she was worried you would laugh it off. I, on the other hand, expect you to listen very seriously to what I have to say."

"I don't have to listen at all." Jolyon climbed to his feet clumsily, looking around for an escape. He'd have to duck back through the kitchen, and he knew the woman was still there. Looking trapped, he stared wide-eyed at the man and pressed his hands to his hips. To his surprise, Numair hadn't moved his hand away from his face, and his words sounded sympathetic and laboured.

"What are you going to do," The mage asked in a slow voice, "If your father never comes home?"

If he had asked it as an adult, demanding and authoritative, the boy would have spat on the ground and refused to answer. But because he sounded so gentle, as if he truly cared, Jolyon simply gaped at him. Seeing him at a loss for words, Numair took a deep breath and rushed to say:

"The war's ending, and people are going back to their jobs. They might not be too keen on keeping a messenger who's untrained and... and illiterate. You can't be a courier if you can't read. We also know that the only reason you haven't starved is because the women in the village have been feeding you. The fields weren't tilled this year and it only takes one bad harvest for people's kind hearts to turn cold. And you can't keep sleeping in the dove loft forever, for Shakith's sake. Winter will arrive and you'll freeze."

"If my father never comes home. If." The boy repeated stubbornly. Numair sighed and looked him straight in the eye.

"We'll help you. I can teach you to read, and Daine can help you with the birds. Or if you want to try something else we can help you find an apprenticeship in the city, or whatever you choose. Even if your father comes home you'll still need a good trade, boy."

"Can't you remember my name?" The boy sounded irritated, but his eyes gleamed. Did they mean it? He steeled himself, made his voice insolent and stuck his hands in his pockets. "Don't think I'm taking charity."

"That's not what we're offering. You'll work hard for your letters, _Jolyon."_ Numair leaned against the wall, looking a little vague as if he wasn't aware he was speaking aloud. "Besides, we can't leave this war half finished. There's as much to do now as there was when we were fighting, only now most people are too proud to shout for help. We have to make the world right again, any way we can. If teaching you to fit into a world that's not in flames will smooth out this corner, then that's what we'll do."

Jolyon gaped at him, stunned by the surprising turn the man's words had taken, and was answered by a shrug and a raised eyebrow as Numair added: "It's not charity. I'm not even giving you a choice."

The boy sniffed and stuck his nose into the air, feigning boyish bravado when he really wanted to whoop and run wildly around the village. Perhaps the man saw it, or understood his pride, because he hid his own smile and stood up, holding out a hand with a professional smile. "Do we have an accord?"

"Do I still have to keep your secret?" The boy grinned impishly at the man's sudden face-fault and shook the offered hand strongly. "Deal. And thank you!"

"Thank Daine. She's been worrying about you since the fire last week." Numair absently scrubbed off his palm onto his tunic and then planted it in his pocket. "I don't like to see her worried."

"But I bet she'll be re-al grateful." The long drawled out word made the tips of Numair's ears turn scarlet, but before he could glare at the boy he had darted away, guffawing with ecstatic glee at his good fortune.

"He's gone." Daine said a few minutes later, when Numair looked around the kitchen with sun-blinded eyes. She smiled. "He was so excited he almost forgot that basket, and when he picked it up he ran out without eating any lunch, shouting that he had to tell his doves all about it. That's one problem solved."

She finished by frowning a little. Numair read her expression correctly.

"Kit?"

"Kit." She nodded, looking a little concerned. "I need to... we need to talk to her."

"We can't keep scolding her." Numair looked a little irritated. "Why is she suddenly behaving so badly?"

Daine bit her lip. "I think she's jealous."

Numair opened his mouth to ask something, and then shook his head and began to clear the table. Daine was always far better at understanding the infant dragon than he was, but even he had picked up on the little immortal's resentment. Sometimes she seemed to hate Daine for spending less time with her, and sometimes she glared at Numair for stealing away her beloved mother, but whenever they tried to talk to Kit about it she would sniff and sulk and stalk off. He didn't have a clue how to even begin to talk to her.

"You like that boy," Numair commented instead, starting to find plates. Daine blinked away her serious thoughts, smiled and nodded.

"I'd like anyone who keeps their animals well informed. It proves they care."

"I'm glad." The man kissed her cheek quickly on his way past. "But he's going to drive me insane. Your strays don't usually answer back."

Daine grinned. "I'll tell him off. Driving you insane is my job."

He laughed a little ruefully, and before Daine realised where he was he caught her around the waist and turned her around to kiss the tip of her nose. "Speaking of which..." he murmured, "I've just spent a whole hour trying to stop myself from kissing you."

"...and wasted another five seconds talkin' about it." She whispered back.

He pulled a face at her, and surprised her by kissing her forehead instead of her lips. When she opened her mouth to complain he cut off the retort with a suddenly passionate kiss, smiling against her lips when he felt her arms sliding around his shoulders. It was only when he heard the sound of china breaking that he realised he had lifted her onto the table, and by that time he didn't care about the broken plates. He had already unlaced her shirt and felt her hands, just as impatient, untying his breeches and urging him closer.

In the end, it was the smell of burning which brought them back to reality, and by the time they noticed and reluctantly parted the stew was close to inedible. Daine smiled rather wickedly at Numair when he made a show of gallantly lifting her down from the table, then knelt down by the smoking stew pot. She stirred it thoroughly, licked the spoon, and then said in a careful voice, "Well, at least it's not on fire."

"Here." Numair picked up her shirt from the floor and handed it to her, taking the spoon. "If that boy comes back, I think he'd say more about you being naked than the stew being burned."

"You're expecting him to come back?" Daine's voice sounded amused, if muffled, as she pulled the shirt over her head. "Gods, then I wish you'd've at least locked the door before you grabbed me."

"If I'd planned to 'grab' you, my eloquent little poetess, we wouldn't have broken plates." He ruffled her hair and returned to picking up the shards. "You're not really complaining, are you, sweet?"

"No," She smiled and shrugged, "But sooner or later we'll have to go back to Corus, and if all we want to do is..."

"Wanting and doing are different things." He interrupted, sounding aloof, and Daine rolled her eyes.

"This week the moment either of us wanted to do anything, we did it." She pointed out, blushing a little at the memory of some of the more impulsive desires they had found themselves enjoying in the past few days. "And I'm really, _really_ not complaining about that. I'm just sayin' that someone in Corus might just _notice_ if we carried on like that, especially if they walked in on us goin' at it in the palace library."

"Oh." Numair looked away, and Daine hid a laugh at the odd note in his voice.

"Odds bobs! That's not a suggestion, love!"

"That's a shame. I've always had this secret fantasy where..."

"Stop that right now! We'd be arrested." The girl shook her head in mock amazement and added, "Not to mention that Jon would just love to be really, really sarcastic at us."

"Jon the Sarcastic." Numair mused, turning the word over slowly. "It's a good name for him. Enemies of Tortall will hear it and tremble."

"Oh, be serious." Daine snapped, hiding a smile. She tugged the tureen off the fire with a rag and left it on one side of the grate, pouring in a little water to see if it would improve matters. "I'm only saying all this because I read your letter."

The man nodded, paused, and left the kitchen to throw the pottery shards into the garden. When he returned he said in a more serious voice, "We can say no."

"We never say no." Daine shook her head, almost shocked by the suggestion. "Especially not when they _need_ us to be there."

"They're just asking us to report, not to fight off Hurrocks. We could write them a letter." Numair sounded peevish, and he closed the kitchen door with a snap. "Don't you see that they're only recalling us because they _know?"_

"Of course they know." Daine looked nonplussed. "We both told Thayet some of it, and by now they'll have worked out the rest. She doesn't gossip, but she does keep a close eye on things. You make it sound like a bad thing."

"It is a bad thing." He looked mulish. "They're prying. There's a short distance between that and downright interfering, and they don't have the right to say a word."

"To be fair, it's a bit late for them to tell us not to do anything." The girl smiled and caught his hand, stroking his fingers in what she hoped was a soothing motion. "And if they do try to lecture you, just close your ears and think of the library."

He choked out a laugh at that. "You said the library was a bad idea."

"I said getting _caught_ was a bad idea." She looked mischievously up at him and pulled a face until he laughed properly. Grinning back, she kissed his cheek and added: "Of course we're going."

"What about the boy?" Numair asked. Daine bit her lip, and then shrugged.

"We can take him with us if he wants to go. There's plenty of spare rooms in the palace, and he can join the underpage classes for his alphabet, and I can show him the dove tower so he knows what he's aimin' to work towards. Are you hungry?"

Numair pulled a face at the cooking pot, which was whining gently as it cooled down. "Not for that."

"Me neither." Daine laughed and pushed the pot to one side with her toe, wincing as the noxious mixture sent up a puff of scorched steam. "I'll give it to Farmer Madding for his pigs when we go to ask Jolyon to pack."

"It needs to cool down, first." Numair said in a false voice, and offered her his arm as if they were about to accompany one another to a dance. "In the meantime it occurs to me, Mistress Sarrasri, that I have yet to introduce you to the delights of my study."

"A study!" She mimed intrigue. "Why, that's almost like a library, isn't it!"

"Close." He patted her hand as they walked together, his voice oddly pompous. "My study, I think you'll find, differs from most libraries in that it holds a particularly large and comfortable chair, eminently suited to the perusal of hidden treasures."

"But no books?" She teased him, and was rewarded with a pained look of arrogant snobbishness.

"The young lady will undoubtedly find something to open which will occupy her time."

Daine couldn't help laughing at that one, muffling her giggles in Numair's shoulder. "If anyone had told me that I'd fall in love with someone who flirts using such ridiculously long words, I'd've called them a liar. I didn't even understand half of them and still I felt it, right here." She pressed her fingers to her stomach and laughed again, this time a little more heatedly. "I'm starting to think you could get me all excited just by reading out tax ledgers, Numair."

"I'm glad to be so engaging." He said solemnly, and added: "Speaking of which..."

She pulled a face and kissed him, stopping his words in a way that he couldn't really object to, even if he did smile ruefully at her when they parted. Daine looked away. That simple, perplexing expression of love and disappointment, which he wore when he watched her sleep and which she caught when she woke up in the mornings, was beginning to break her heart.


	12. Time Consuming

"I finished packing. Cloud gave me the most knowing look." Numair grumbled a few hours later, by way of a greeting. Daine smiled and climbed over the style she'd been leaning on, watching the road which ambled from the farmlands towards the village.

Numair caught his friend when she jumped down, kissed her playfully as she wriggled her way to freedom, and then anxiously persisted with his question. "Do you think she knows?"

"I'm fair sure of it. I'd even bet on it." Daine patted Numair's horse and gave her a silent apology for being saddled up in this heat. The animal whickered. "Cloud's been teasing me for weeks anyway, and you have to admit that we are acting…well, strangely. Even if the other animals hadn't told her, she's too clever not to work out why I've not been to the field the past few days."

"Outwitted by a horse." Numair rolled his eyes at the mare. The horse caught his expression, snorted and pranced away in response. "And I'm supposed to be clever! My reputation will be ruined."

"Especially since she's a pony, not a horse." The girl smirked when he pulled a face. "Don't worry. She'll be insufferable for a few weeks, but then I'm the one who'll have to hear her crowing 'I told you so!' when we get back. I'm surprised I can't hear her shouting it after us now!"

-She did tell me to give you a message,- the mare said steadily, pulling a stem of seeding grass from the verge at the side of the road. The girl frowned and caught up with the horse, patting her side a little worriedly.

"A message? She doesn't usually…"

–She said, tell the stork man he'd better look after you, since she's not here to keep you out of trouble. If he gets up to any mischief she'll hear about it, and he'll have to answer to her.-

Daine laughed out loud, and then covered her mouth with her hand and glanced back at Numair. She knew he felt left out of the conversation when she spoke to the People. She thanked the horse for the message and slowed down a little so she could walk beside the man.

"Cloud's mothering me," she explained, and repeated back Cloud's warning. Numair raised an eyebrow.

"But I like getting up to mischief." He said mildly, and looped an arm around her waist. His playful voice grew more heated. "And we both know that you do, too. Who's going to protect me?"

She shivered despite herself, sternly telling her legs not to feel so weak around him when there was walking to be done. "Do you want me to ask Cloud that?"

"Gods, no!" He laughed, and some of the spell was broken. "She'd kill me."

"I'd ask her not to," Daine said absentmindedly. She glanced back in the direction of the tower. The sun was nearly setting, and the distant silhouette of the battlements was murky against the reddish sky. Despite herself, Cloud's warning had made Daine feel a little guilty, and even though she knew that the riders would be fine without her for a few more days, she couldn't help feeling like she was hiding from her real life. It didn't help that the other travellers who shared the road all seemed to be heading back to the city.

"If they really needed us, then you know we wouldn't have left." Numair said, seeing her worried expression and guessing what she was thinking. "Daine, we haven't stopped working since the war started. Not since the barrier fell. The only time either of us took a break was when we were sick, or hurt. Jon's been pestering me to go home and… well, he actually said 'stop moping around my castle', but you get the idea."

"Onua asked me when I was going to spend my savings." Daine agreed slowly. "She said I should get to know Tortall when it's not a battlefield. I thought she was teasing me."

"Everyone's conspiring against us." Numair winked and squeezed her waist for a second. "Besides, we are going back. We're just taking a few extra days to get there. They know how to find us if they need us, sweet. So don't worry."

"I'm not worried!" She said, surprised at her own vehemence, and then laughed. "Well, maybe I am. I just… don't want anything to spoil this. Not even my own thoughts. It's too… too important."

"Speaking of spoiling this..." He nodded absently at the road to the village, where a small silhouette was already thudding towards them. "I think your stray has been spying on us."

"We're not doing anything he can't see, and you're fair bad to speak like that about Jolyon." She frowned disapprovingly up at him and then smiled. It was like the sun breaking through the most fragile clouds. "I know you don't mean it, but he might not realise that."

"Good. I can terrify him into being obedient." Numair muttered, "Or, at the very least, less... time consuming."

"Now you're just being jealous."

"I'm 'fair sure' I'm allowed to be." He sounded quite arch, despite the playful mimicry. Daine sighed and waved at Jolyon, who waved back eagerly.

"I saw you from the d...dovecote." He panted when he had run into shouting range. "Are you here to s...see me?"

"Yes," Daine smiled sweetly and stepped on Numair's foot when he opened his mouth to make some sardonic comment about the boy's prying nature. Ignoring his muffled yelp of surprise, she caught Jolyon's shoulder and waited for him to catch his breath. Then, in a steady voice, she explained that they were going to Corus and (in an even more calming voice) that they wanted him to come with them. The boy's eyes grew wide as saucers; the calming voice didn't work, for he whooped so loudly a flock of doves burst out of the dovecote to see what was wrong. Daine winced and calmed them down.

"You're coming to learn, not to sightsee," Numair made his voice stern, and only Daine understood the smile in the odd expression which he tried to hide. She hastily added,

"And we're going there the long way – through as many villages on the Kings Road as we can find. We'll be sleeping rough for a few weeks."

The boy's smirk faded and his voice grew impertinent. "Why bother? It's not like you're strapped for coppers. Everyone knows that."

"Mind your..." Numair started, and then caught Daine's eye and shrugged apologetically. Turning back to the boy, he explained, "We'll be working. Setting up wards, healing horses, fixing barriers, gathering up stray flocks – things that would take a normal person weeks, but that we can do in a few hours. We'll expect you to help."

"Yes, sir." The boy looked wide-eyed at both of them. "You can really do all that?"

Daine smiled and waved a hand vaguely, dismissing the unintentional boast. "With three of us we'll be able to do even more. That's if you want to come, of course. If you don't, then we'll be back in a few months to start your lessons."

"No ma'am." Jolyon looked suddenly stubborn. "I'm helping. Are we going now?"

"Tomorrow." The girl said, "We wanted to give you a chance to pack and say goodbye to your friends."

"I don't have friends." He didn't bother looking unhappy about that, he was too excited. For the first time a rather cool expression crossed the girl's face, and Jolyon shrank back. He would tease her at the drop of a pin, but he didn't like the idea of disappointing someone so nice.

"All the people who have fed you and given you clothes and work these past months deserve more respect than that." She said, and her voice was sharp. "You have a whole family of friends who are going to miss you, no matter what you say. Your life didn't begin and end the day your father disappeared, you know."

Scolded, the boy looked down at his feet. As his eyes moved down he saw the man take hold of Daine's hand and squeeze it. It wasn't an affectionate gesture, and if she hadn't curled her own hands as tightly around his in reply Jolyon might have thought the man was hurting her. But that didn't seem to be right; the woman drew a deep breath and said, "Say goodbye to them, and say thank you, and then come and meet us at the tower when you're ready to leave."

888

It was the first time in two years that Jolyon had felt safe. He only realised that when he woke up and saw the bloodstained spidren beside the eddying lake.

They had camped there the night before, not wanting to cross the tidal water in the treacherous orange twilight. It made shallows look deep, and deep water look cool and inviting when in fact dangerous currents lurked just beneath the deceptive surface. The boy had looked over the open water suspiciously, counting off in his head the number of treacherous creatures that might easily ambush them in such an exposed space.

Still, neither of the adults seemed to be worried, and as they busied themselves making their camp and building a fire Jolyon forced himself to look calm. His pride would not allow him to look nervous, much less to ask them if they had made a mistake. He lay down in his bedroll that night and thought, at least he would die in his sleep. And he slept deeply, because Master Salmalin had given him a soft new blanket as casually as Daine had handed him plateful after plateful of trail stew. He fell into soft, contented dreams, and when he woke up the vicious immortal was sneering at him across the water.

Joly gasped in a breath and stared back. The monster was barely ten meters away, close enough that he could see the hairs clumping together on its abdomen. It must have come to the water to drink, for its face looked a little cleaner than the rest of it. Unlike stormwings the spidren were a little more meticulous, and so it was odd to see one so covered in gore. Its expression was livid with mad hatred, and when it saw the boy waking it licked its lips. Silver teeth gleamed in the dim dawn light.

The boy tried to move but his legs felt like offal meat wrapped in a blanket. He covered his face with shaking fingers and wished the horrible thing away. Nothing happened. The spidren did not disappear. But it didn't move, either. Not a single inch.

Jolyon slowly lowered his hands and looked again. The expression on the immortal's face was... not just insane rage. No, he had imagined that, because surely all immortals were monsters...? But there was something else written in its narrowed eyes. If it had been human, it might have looked like fear. And still, it didn't move. It looked down at its feet, and then up again, and then it grimaced and made an odd noise.

The adults were sleeping on the other side of the fire, even closer to the immortal than Jolyon was. The woman had been resting her head on the man's shoulder, which – even in his terror – Joly snidely thought must have been uncomfortable. He was so bony that it must have been like lying on a fence post! At the immortal's noise the wildmage stirred, groaned and nestled back against the man's neck, as if it were the most comfortable fence post in the world.

"D... Daine!" Jolyon whispered, his voice so hoarse he felt as if his racing heartbeat could be heard in every letter. Her eyes flickered open and she looked confusedly up at him, and then followed his frantically pointing finger.

"Ohfff." She tried to sit up. A sleepy smile crossed her face, and she moved her hands over the leaden arms which circled her waist . "Numair," she mumbled, laughter dancing in her sleepwalker's voice, "Le' me go."

"Go bac' sleep magele'. I's _early_." Was the unobliging reply. The girl yawned and settled back down. She barely looked at the immortal which was still transfixed by the water.

"Daine!" Jolyon couldn't believe his eyes. How stupid were these people?! The fear in his voice must have been obvious, because even though the girl still looked half asleep this time her grey eyes opened fully and focused on the frightened child.

"It's ok," She mouthed at him, and her eyes started sliding shut again as she murmured: "There's a shield."

The boy blinked at her, and then stared wide-eyed at the creature. He couldn't see the telltale glow of magic around its limbs, but what else could be holding it in place? As he watched, he realised that other animals – birds, rabbits – could pass through and get to the water easily. It was only the hostile immortal which had been trapped.

"Of course!" The mage looked aloof when Jolyon asked about it over breakfast. "I know better than to try to keep animals away from Daine."

"Isn't magic meant to be less... complicated?" The boy asked, trying not to sound squeamish.

Daine had shooed him away from the lake when she went to speak to the spidren that morning. He had a feeling it had not been a very pleasant conversation for the immortal. Both she and Master Salmalin seemed so matter-of-fact about the spidren that it seemed idiotic to ask questions about it, but... but the villagers had fought immortals with weapons and rocks and fire, not magic and words. Apparently the black mage could _literally_ fight monsters in his sleep. It was a rather terrifying revelation about a man who snored so loudly. But then, it seemed that the famed black mage also tailored his spells to be kind to fluffy little bunny rabbits.

"It's not complicated," Numair waved a hand in the air absently. "I mean, yes, it's been through a few changes. Back when the allied immortals joined the war I had to refine it. And before that it used to set hostiles on fire but there were a few complaints about the noise and the smell of burned hair. Then Lindhall suggested a paralysis variation but Alanna wandered into one of the test spells, and the jailor who let me out of the stocks suggested..." he tailed off, looking a little sheepish, and bit into an apple so he had an excuse to stop talking.

"By Numair's standards, it's not complicated." Daine summarised, and winked at Jolyon. "It confuses the hell out of the rest of us."

"But it keeps you safe?" Jolyon asked, and when they glanced at each other and didn't answer the boy grinned. "Complicated sounds alright to me!"

"Then show me the alphabet you were complaining about yesterday," Numair jumped in, a rather evil grin crossing his face. The boy scowled and tossed back his hair.

"I said complicated, not impossible."

Numair handed him a stick and pointed to the lake. "Go and write as much as you can remember in the mud while we break camp. Capitals and cursive, mind. I'll come and help when you get stuck." He waited for the boy to take the stick and stomp over to the water, and then turned to Daine and said in a completely different voice, "What did that spidren tell you?"

"Not much," She sighed and scratched her ear. "The usual nonsense. Curses and threats and insults about our more embarrassing body parts. Nothing about why he was covered in blood."

"We'll find out at the next village," Numair looked dour, "If it's still there. Maybe we should have left a day earlier."

"Don't start saying 'maybe'. It's just as likely as the immortals deciding that 'maybe' they'll attack a day later."

Daine's gibe sounded flat. She had tried her hardest to get the immortal to speak to her, but he was raging with anger and stubborn hatred. In the end he had strained so hard against the spell she had heard the sick pop of his shoulder disconnecting from its socket, and she had raised her bow without thinking. If the creature was that mindless with bloodlust she wouldn't be able to trust a word he said even if he did speak.

But something was troubling her. It had been a fully grown adult, a creature that would have fought brutally in the war. By the time Ozorne had organised his assault even the most stupid immortals had learned to prowl the mortal realm in packs, defending themselves and each other by their strength of numbers.

A lone spidren was ungainly and obvious, especially in open marshes and farmland like they were travelling through. His kills would have to be quick and silent, made in darkness without so much as a scream. The kind of gore the spidren had been covered in spoke of a slow death, of pain and wailing that would bring the villagers running with sharpened pitchforks and lit torches.

"It's against their nature to hunt alone, in the open." She said slowly, thinking back to the gore-streaked immortal with a wince. "There's something strange about this. I'll ask the birds to look around."

Numair nodded and glanced over at the lakeside. "Should we tell him?"

"No." Daine said immediately, so rapidly that she almost interrupted the man. "Whatever it is, we can protect him. And there's no point in making him worry. Especially if it's nothing. That spidren was fair unsettling, true, but... we're probably just over thinking this."

"I'd trust your instincts," Numair said, and then added darkly. "You know as well as I do that there's something badly wrong here, Daine."


	13. Normal

Jolyon ran his hand through the still water and thought idly about the way it moved over his hand. It was different from the water he was used to – but how could it be? Water was supposed to be the same whether you were from the rolling hills of his hometown or the castles by the cliffs, wasn't it? It was cool, and wet, and if you drank too quickly your teeth would buzz like a hive of bees.

They were only a day's walk from home, but this water felt different. It was smooth and soft, like molten wax that was somehow, impossibly, cold. When he slid his fingertips under the surface they disappeared, even though the water looked clean enough. The marshy pools gleamed with a silvery strangeness (Joly had never even heard the word _iridescence;_ he hadn't been around Master Samalin for long enough for his excessive syllables to take effect). He moved his hand back and forth and wondered if he was the first person to make this water move, and to dirty it with the grime from his fingernails, and to hunt for his reflection in the oily opaque shallows.

Something slithered against his hand. He gasped and yanked it out of the water, rubbing it fitfully. A fish, he told himself, but his hair stood on end. It had almost felt like...

"Has anyone drowned?" A voice asked. He turned around quickly and, seeing the horrified expression in his eyes, Daine's voice grew a little softer. "They... they'd float. Did you... did you see...?"

"They were all torn up in the village." The boy said bleakly, turning back to the water and telling himself not to be the first person to vomit into those peaceful depths. Behind him he heard the woman sigh, and he could imagine the set of her chin as she shook her head.

"We told you: there wasn't enough... enough remains." She swallowed and for a second Jolyon wondered if the girl was going to be sick instead of him. She had seen a few more battles than he had, though (Jolyon made the comparison having seen a grand total of none), and seemed to know how to shake off the horror of what they had found in the village that morning.

The boy had stood in the center of the town square, one hand resting on the warm splinters of the well shaft, and he had to will himself not to dive in just so he didn't have to look any more. He found it impossible to believe that the gore had only come from a few people. The mages told him that it had been five or six victims at the most, probably dead at the hands of the spidren... but there was no sign of anybody else. The village must have housed nearly a hundred people.

"Their horses are still in the fields, and they say they didn't see anything," Daine had told them with her eyes focusing and unfocusing in a dizzying blur. Jolyon had to look away, but Numair pressed her to ask more and more questions without seeming to notice.

Daine held up her hand, biting her lip when his questions grew too rapid, and shut her eyes for a long time. Her lips moved silently, and she breathed evenly until she gasped in a sudden deep breath and her eyes flew open. The first thing she saw was a chipped axe buried in the stained wall behind her companions, and a line appeared between her eyes.

"It's not right." She muttered, shaking her head as if it ached. "They must have seen something."

"What did they say?" Jolyon belatedly realised she'd been speaking to the animals, and looked at the nearby trees in such awe that he forgot his trembling for a moment. Daine glanced at him, but she spoke to Numair.

"Everything was normal last night. They woke up at dawn and the village was empty. Apart from the... the..." She swallowed and looked up at a circling bird. "...carrion."

The man gripped her shoulder for a second and Daine met his eyes with an expression which was so tired and empty that she looked like a blank-faced marionette. "Numair, do you think I should ask the bats? If I can find where they're roosting..."

"No, magelet. You look like you've asked every animal in ten miles." He looked at the child and tugged at his nose. "There are three of us. We can search the buildings for survivors or... maybe they left a note."

"A note." Daine echoed in a flat, sardonic voice. When the man narrowed his eyes at her she shook her head fitfully and her voice grew harsh. "You know as well as I do that every single person who was living here must be dead."

Jolyon shivered. He was terrified by the empty, bloodstained village, but he was equally frightened by this change in the two adults. They had been distant in the village, but in a reserved, polite way. This cold distance didn't suit them, and it scared the boy to see such an abrupt shift in their humour. Neither of them looked like they were ever going to smile again – even at each other.

He wrapped his arms around his shoulders and stared at the ground. Even the dirt was reddish, marred.

" Jolyon, wait for us by the lake." Daine said suddenly. "You'll be safe at camp, it's still warded. You don't need to see this. You've done plenty."

"Daine..." Numair started objecting, and then yelped when the girl stood on his toe. He followed the line of her pointing finger to the boy's waxen, greenish cheeks and he sighed. "Yes, fine. You'll be safer and we'll know where you are, unless whatever did this grabs you. Or us. Off you go."

Jolyon muffled a yelp and sped away at high speed towards the lake, kicking up dust as he went.

"I should have stood on your toe harder." Daine muttered, and left to search the first building.

It took them hours to search the village, far longer than they expected. They moved... slowly.

There was something unbearably eerie about the deserted buildings, and as she pushed open doors Daine found her heart beating a little too fast. They all swung open easily; none of the houses were locked or barred. If the villagers had been defending themselves from the immortals, then surely they would have barricaded themselves behind the strong walls? Or at least, Daine thought as she pulled the curtain rags back from a bed box, they would have protected their children? Every time she found a crib she expected weak infant cries, or (worst of all) bloodstains and torn sheets, but there was nothing. From the old to the young, from rocking chairs to basket beds, the village was deserted.

So why did it feel so uncanny? They had found empty houses before, where families had left at the news of an approaching attack. Sometimes people crept away from their homes in the night, as if they would be safer if even their neighbours could not find them. When they left, though, they packed up all their supplies and clothes, and anything they might sell.

Here, in these empty rooms, were signs of life. Meals were left on tables, with pieces of bread half-sawn off next to oozing pats of butter. Bedpans were stone cold in empty fireplaces, and laundry hung dry and stiff from the fireguards. Even the children's dolls had been left behind.

Gods, the dolls were the worst thing. Daine started to dread the sight of their painted faces. They perched on chairs and pillows and smiled sweetly at the girl every time she pushed open the door. Enchanted, one of the more intricate ones trembled at her soft footsteps and cried out in a thin, cloying voice: _Mama! Mama!_

Daine jumped and glared at the toy which had spoken, feeling like it was mocking her after her hours of searching. In the dim twilight its voice was ghostly and pale, and she shuddered. A whole village full of secrets and blood was the worst thing she couldn't have ever imagined. For once she understood how Numair must feel, when he zealously demanded that everything make sense. Nothing about this village made sense, and the more she puzzled over it, the more Daine despised it. How could she help – how could she defend herself? – if she had no idea what was wrong?

Filled with a rush of petulant anger, she picked up the doll and threw it against the wall. It whined as it struck the wall and then began to speak again. _Mama! Mama! Mamamamamama...!_

"Figures." Daine growled, and prodded the broken toy with her boot. A shadow fell across its face and she heard the sound of snapping fingers. The endless stream of words stopped so quickly her ears rang. Filled with sudden remorse, Daine picked up the stupid thing and placed it carefully back on the chair.

"I feel it too." Numair said, his voice a little cowed. Daine shivered and took one last look around the empty room, as if the villagers might jump out and shout "Surprise!" Of course, they didn't.

"It looks like things are back to normal," She folded her arms and glared at the doll. "Well _that_ didn't take long."

"Normal." Numair laughed shortly and shook his head, unable to hide his own unease. "This place is certainly not..."

"Not the place. I mean us. The way we live. This is normal for us, isn't it?" She looked up at him with wide eyes, as if daring him to suggest something else.

"I think the difference is that we stayed." The man said, obviously choosing his words with care. "Most other people would have seen the blood and kept walking. Running, even. I know I was rather tempted."

"Maybe we should move on." Daine gestured around the room, and out of the shuttered window towards the street. "If the other houses are all like the ones I checked then... I don't even know what we _could_ do if we stayed. If we told the people at Corus they could send help, and then..."

"Who would they send, Daine?"

The girl looked up in surprise, hearing the same weary resignation in his voice which she had been trying to hide in her own. Despite herself, the corners of her mouth twitched in a rueful smile. "They'd send us."

"I'm not a good enough rider to risk the potholes in the King's Road twice in one week." Numair shook his head and rested a long hand on the doorframe thoughtfully, looking up at the protection runes carved above his head.

Usually this glib silence was enough to finish the conversation. Daine could never think of a retort. Instead, she remembered the tens of times this had happened before, and how she always (grudgingly) decided that Jon had been right to choose them, or Numair was right to coax her into staying an extra night in a town where something wasn't quite right. It had happened so many times that now they didn't even talk about reasons, they just reminded each other that this was what they always did. And why did they always do it? Because they always had!

She picked up the doll and stroked its yellow hair back from its grubby face. Numair might make a joke out of it, but he sounded just as tired as she felt. For the first time, the girl wondered how much he got back from this life, where he always talked himself into giving. Perhaps it was his way of repaying the generosity that the Tortallans had shown him when he was fleeing for his life. Maybe he felt guilty, as if he could give back his overgenerous share of the gift to those who had less by helping them out. But it had never really occurred to Daine before that sometimes – or at least this once – her friend felt as trapped by their dutiful obligations as she sometimes did.

"Numair," She asked softly, and then stopped and swallowed because the words seemed easier in her head, when he wasn't looking back at her with those dark eyes. "I... I wish this wasn't normal. I wanted... I hoped..." She closed her eyes in frustration and the words came out in a rush. "I thought all of this was... was done with."

He didn't answer, and in his silence Daine could hear all of the excuses that he respected her too much to say, and all of the answers which she already knew. She saw her life then, in colour and in bright, sharp lines from the bandit attack through rebellions and battles and the divine war, like a series of stories that always had to end in agonizing climaxes. And what came before that? A childhood where she was despised for the colour of her hair, or the crippling struggle with her magic that made her distrust even the safety of her own mind?

Perhaps the war would be over soon. But even if it was, her life was so tied up in chaos that it seemed to inevitably find her. And she could fight through that, and win, because that was how she had survived for so many years. Normality was as alien to her as speaking to horses might be to a villager who cleaned soot from a rag doll's face. And so Daine longed for the tedium of a normal life, but only knew how to fit into a world torn apart by brutality.

And because she knew how to survive, she saw every single body that had fallen by the wayside.

Numair had not intended to include her in that kind of life, but after their first year together he knew that she was an excellent archer, and was growing into a powerful mage. In the middle of a war a child weapon was still a weapon, and he often saw Jon forgetting that Daine was still only fifteen or so, younger than most of the wide-eyed women who were introduced at court.

Numair himself found the life quite exciting – a chance to use the spells he had only learned in theory at the university. But then, he knew the tedium of that kind of studious life. He remembered the peace of it on nights when the roar of magefire lit up the night sky. Daine would lie in her bedroll with her arm thrown across her eyes and her ears smothered in the blanket, contorting her body to take her to a tranquillity which her mind could not imagine.

"What do you think normal means? Couldn't this be... part of it?" He asked her, finally daring to break the hurt silence. She shook her head and looked distractedly at the doll which she still carried. Without thinking about it, she touched its painted pink cheeks and frowned.

"You said you wanted children," She said, and the lost note in her whisper broke his heart. "I can't bear even to let myself want..." her voice cracked and she covered her mouth, as if she had said something which she didn't want to. Not meeting his eyes, or even looking at his feet on the dusty floor, she coughed and said, "We need to get back to the lake. Jolyon will be worried."

888


	14. Blind

That night Daine sat by the fire for hours, her eyes closed with a furrow of concentration lying between them. Numair found himself pacing, busying his hands at pointless tasks because every time he looked at his friend he had to stop himself from shaking her out of her meditation. He could see the weariness etching itself onto her face with every minute that passed, shadowing eyes which had only just begun to look bright again after the long, endless exhaustion of the war. He swept twigs away from the fire pit and fidgeted with their travel supplies, counting packs of trail mix over and over again until the numbers refused to make sense.

"Is she asleep?" A small voice piped up. The man looked up from knotting a snare and saw the crumpled form of Jolyon move to sit up.

"She's not." He replied shortly, adding: "But you should be. You've had a long day."

"Do you think I can sleep?" The boy's voice was scornful. "I'll get nightmares."

"How do you know until you try?" The words were trite, the kind of nonsense Numair remembered from his own childhood, and so he wasn't entirely surprised when the boy snorted and rolled his eyes. Crawling on hands and knees like an infant, Jolyon crept forward and peered more closely at Daine. A strange look crossed his face, and he sat back on folded knees.

"She looks sick." He announced. "Must be seeing all those bodies that's done it. She'll have nightmares, too. You should wake her up."

"She's not asleep." Numair repeated, and despite the impatient note in his voice he was grateful for the distraction. Beckoning the boy over, he explained how Daine's magic worked, and how it took a long time sometimes, because she wasn't just summoning a flame or sketching a rune; she had to talk to living creatures, with all their awkward shyness and idiot absentmindedness. Even the most helpful animals were unreliable. They were curious and good natured right up until their feral instincts kicked in, and then the most important thing in the world for them was hunting, or fleeing, or finding a mate.

Jolyon listened with narrowed eyes, yawning and rubbing his eyes from time to time like any other child listening to a bedtime story. When his eyes slid shut he would yank them open, gasping in sudden fear and looking into the darkness as if it were about to lash out at him. Numair tried to tell him that they were perfectly safe behind the shield, but his own skin crawled when he looked back towards the village. Those people had thought they were safe behind their protection runes...

A tree rustled, moving against the wind, and Jolyon yelped and buried his head in his hands as a great black shadow rushed towards them. The thing crackled and hissed and shrieked, and passed through the shield harmlessly. Numair gasped and was about to raise a hand which crackled with fire to destroy the creature, when a smaller hand grabbed his wrist.

"No!" She cried out, and then in a lower voice managed, "I'm sorry for scaring you. They... they're frightened too. I said they could stay with me tonight. As a... a thank you."

The shadow shrieked over them and then crumbled, sloughing off in angular shards. Daine raised her hands and in seconds the shadow covered her in hundreds of tiny writhing bodies. The bats burrowed into her hair and her clothes and she moved her hand over their trembling backs one by one, soothing them. Numair caught one that had been burrowing under his hair and held it in his hands, stroking its long, soft ears. It tried to nestle between his fingers, as if it still wanted to hide.

"I've never seen them so unnerved." He said, awed. Daine nodded and bit her lip, gathering more of the creatures into her lap and trying to quieten them.

"They're terrified and they're _starving_." She whispered, her voice as soft as she could make it so that the bats didn't pick up on the trembling in her voice. "They said they couldn't hunt last night. They're too scared to hunt tonight. They told me they're scared of going blind again." One of the creatures nuzzled against her cheek, and she leaned her head towards it a little. "Poor things."

A yelp made them both jump, and they saw a small shape wriggling under a blanket. Jolyon had apparently dived under the covers to make the demons go away, and now there were so many bats on his bedroll that he was trapped under the fabric. Smiling despite herself, Daine called the bats to her and freed the child. He emerged glaring at the animals, resenting them for scaring him. They didn't react, and after a few cautiously slow movements the boy cleared his throat and tried to produce bravado: "Doesn't seem like they can see much anyway!"

"Well no, they don't really see with their eyes. They hear things and it makes pictures in their minds." Daine scratched her nose, frowning. "I was trying to work that out. I thought maybe there was a bright light, or a fire – something which would take away what little vision they have. Their eyes just can't cope with it. But maybe... no." She shook her head and looked down at the bats. "A fire is the only thing that makes sense."

"Nothing's burned."

"Magefire, then." The girl looked up at Numair. "A flare of it in the sky would be bright enough to hurt their eyes."

"Wouldn't we have seen it?" Jolyon piped up, wide awake now. Daine shrugged, but even she was obviously unsatisfied with the explanation. Numair looked down at the nest of bats who were burrowing into his lap, and wished for the hundredth time that he could talk to the animals as easily as Daine did. He trusted her, of course, but sometimes he felt like he would have been able to get a clearer answer out of the creatures than she managed. Still, he conceded, it was difficult to get frightened humans to stop babbling, and from the way Daine had described the odd fluidity of a hive mind, he wasn't surprised that her hours of exhausting questions had surrendered so few answers.

"The alternative is just as unlikely." He filled in the words that she had dismissed so off-handedly. "If there had been a noise which confused their sonar, then we would have heard that. It would have had to be loud enough to fill their entire hunting ground, and last long enough to spoil the whole night. We would have heard that."

"If it was..." Daine started, and then stopped herself again. Looking up with hollowed eyes, she faked a smile and her voice completely changed. "Joly, how would you feel about staying in an inn for a few days? There's one not five hours from here, in Killatha. We'll give you enough money to stay there until we're finished."

"Alone?" The boy's voice grew shrill, and the bats around him squeaked and writhed away. Daine called them to her silently and cuddled them close, wishing with all her heart that she couldn't see the pain on the boy's face in the dim firelight.

"Do you want to end up like those people in the village, all torn up by spidren?" She returned harshly. The child bristled.

"You said there was only five bodies. You _said_ that. You don't know what happened to the others any more than... than your stupid bats do. I ain't getting thrown away."

"If it wasn't the spidren – and believe me, it wasn't – then it was something worse. People don't just disappear for no reason! They don't! And it wasn't spidren or a mage casting fire or... or bandits or..." She shook her head in frustration and in that moment Numair understood her fear, and the strange way she had acted in the village.

However frantically Daine tried, she couldn't understand or alter anything that had happened here. And she had been here before. An orphaned child was left confused and frightened in the middle of a ravaged village, but... perhaps this time she could change the way things happened. It must have been frustrating beyond words for Daine that no matter how hard she looked, there were still no answers. The only thing that they could practically do was make sure the child was safe, but even that felt like the wrong answer.

Daine had fallen silent, nursing the squirming bats she held and shaking her head at Jolyon's stream of hurt protestations. Numair scrubbed his face with his hand and took a quick breath.

"Go to sleep, boy." He said it firmly enough that the boy stopped talking mid sentence and eyeballed him. Seeing that the mage was being completely serious, Jolyon nodded, wiped his eyes with a quick motion that defied them to comment, and turned his back on them so quickly that a bat was sent flying. He gasped and picked it up, cuddling it apologetically, and they both quietened into a sulky silence.

Numair moved enough bats aside that he could sit next to Daine, and wrapped his arms around her tense shoulders. She sighed and leaned her head against his own, absently stroking the dozing bats.

"If a noise," he asked softly, "could only be heard by the People, would you have heard it?"

She smiled and kissed his cheek, amused at the way he had read her thoughts. "That's what I was thinking."

"You turn your magic off so you can sleep." Numair mused aloud. "The animals can't do that. Whatever it was... whatever mischief it was doing... they would have had to suffer through it."

"Poor loves. But it didn't kill them." Daine looked relieved about that, and gestured around to the bats. "And they didn't disappear, either. So if this mage did something that..."

"The gift can't make a whole village disappear." The man interrupted her. "It wasn't a mage."

"Just because you can't do something, doesn't mean another mage didn't..." Daine yawned and smiled at his expression. "I'm just teasing you. Don't look so sulky."

"I'm not sulking, I'm thinking." Numair tugged his nose as if to prove that point, but hesitated before admitting what he'd been thinking. "Daine, if it's not a mage then the only possibility is that it's an immortal using magic we haven't seen before."

"I figured." Daine yawned again and shifted so she could lie down without squashing any of the bats. "I'll leave my magic on in case it happens again."

"You can't possibly be thinking of using yourself as bait." Numair burst out without thinking. Daine opened one eye and raised her hand, beckoning him down to lie beside her. When she leaned closer she spoke in such a low, intent voice that Jolyon wouldn't have been able to hear a word, even if he had been listening intently.

"Stop thinking like a besotted idiot, Numair. None of the people in the village were wild mages. Whatever happened to them could be heard by... by normal people, with normal ears. People like you, not like me. If it comes for any of us we need to know if it's thinking in friendship or in hate."

"It wouldn't kill a whole village to make friends with them." Numair had to quell his quick temper to keep his voice lowered, but the words sounded sharp. "I'm thinking clearly. If you wear yourself out using all of your magic then you'll be useless to me tomorrow. If that... thing... attacked us right now, I don't think you'd have the strength to fight it."

She yawned rather deliberately, not believing his blustering for a moment, and burrowed deeper under her blanket. Her voice fell into a tired burr. "I'm not aiming to fight. I want to find the villagers. If you think you can do better by setting the trees on fire then I'm fair set to give you my blessing. And if being tired in the middle of the night is foolish then I guess you're the fool, since you won't stop talking."

He fell into a petulant silence at that, and Daine sighed and caught his hand apologetically. "I don't know if the villagers are dead, Numair. The more I think about it, the more convinced I get that they must still be alive. The footprints in that village were walking, not running. There's been no struggle. So if they're not dead, then maybe we can find them. Whatever happened here has a reason. I want to know what it is. I guess you do, too."

"Yes," he agreed, and kissed her temple softly. "If only to stop it happening again."

Daine shivered and glanced instinctively towards Jolyon, who looked fast asleep.

"Don't send him away." Numair replied in the same low voice. "We can protect him far better than the hedge mages in Killatha."

"The monster's not _in_ Killatha." Daine mumbled, her eyes fluttering closed. Numair swallowed at the childish word, wishing that it didn't bring so many eerie folk stories racing into his mind. Shifting her sleeping weight in his arms, he closed his own eyes and waited for the nightmares to claim him.


	15. Glass Eyes

Daine was still fast asleep the next morning when Jolyon joined Numair by the lake. His sleep obviously hadn't been peaceful; the boy moved so stiffly that for a moment the mage wondered if he had been hurt by some creature that had broken into his dreams. It was a ludicrous notion, and Numair mentally scowled at himself for even humouring the thought. It said a lot about how illogical this village was, that the most sensible answer was absolutely nonsensical. Jolyon sat down clumsily and accepted a piece of bread, averting his eyes.

"Goo' morning." He mumbled, and started chewing. The man looked sidelong at him, and returned the greeting. Then, seeing the child shrug indifferently, Numair simply said:

"We're not going to send you away."

Joly choked on his bread and beat on his chest to clear it. "Um!" He managed, when the danger was past. "Did Daine say that?"

"It's not just her decision." Numair hid the irritation in his voice. Honestly, it was like the two of them were in league with one another against him. It was too early in the morning to work out why Jolyon seemed so in awe of Daine, and so he bit his tongue. "If she asks, you offered to look after Kitten while we're scouting the area."

"So... I still have to stay here." The boy said in a surly tone. "Alone. I only agreed to come with you because you said it'd be helping people and seeing magic and animals. You didn't say anything about leaving me alone with dead people."

Numair shook his head, unsure of how to answer. His experiences talking to young children had usually been tempered by the sure, comforting knowledge that he could order them to go back to their parents as soon as they started annoying him. He had tried speaking to Jolyon as one adult to another, and had thought it had been working quite well until this stream of petty sulkiness had started.

Numair couldn't help thinking that if the boy wasn't there, he would have been able to finish a train of thought by now. He might even have solved this mystery. He was a little too vain to realise that he was using the child as an excuse for his inability to do so.

He would never have admitted such a failure out loud, but there was a noticeable amount of aloofness in his voice when he told the boy: "If we can't find any clues today, then we'll have to move on anyway. There are other people who might be able to find things we can't – scryers, or even thieves who can find secret tunnels and hidden doors. So if nothing happens today we'll go straight to Corus and bring some back, and you can stay in the castle."

"What does Daine think about that plan?" The boy asked. Numair gave him a narrow look and didn't answer, but Jolyon could see the grim stubbornness in the set of the man's jaw. While his friend slept, the mage must have been awake making these plans, and after those hours alone with his thoughts they might as well have been etched in stone. Whatever Daine thought, the boy realised, they would end up doing exactly what Master Salmalin had decided.

Jolyon swallowed his bread and picked crumbs out of his teeth. While half of his brain was whooping at the thought of living in an actual castle, the other half was still hurting at the idea of being pushed aside. Both of the adults had told him that they were going to abandon him, they just couldn't agree on how they were going to do it. And they were so caught up in arguing over other things that they probably hadn't even noticed how helpless that made him feel. Without looking up, he hid the last part of his bread in his pocket.

He flinched and dragged his fingers away when the stifled shriek rang out. Numair jumped to his feet in an instant, and was running the few meters towards Daine before she'd even drawn another breath. Her eyes were wide and horrified, her skin ashen, and she pressed her fingers to her mouth so fiercely that she might have been trying to choke that frightened scream back into her throat. When Numair reached her she stayed still, her eyes frozen into place. Numair followed her line of sight and his own skin grew sickly pale.

They must have been people. They must _be_ people, and yet... the eddies and bays of light which bled through the trees mottled their skin and warped their silhouettes into demons, into shadows which had no beginning and end. They oozed into each other like liquid, but their eyes – oh, their eyes were their own. Shining white and blank in the grimy dawn light, tall and short, narrowed and bulbous, each glaring pair stared unblinking back at the two mages.

But that wasn't the worst thing. The worst thing... their hands, their poor hands. The children pressed them against the shield, making pudgy palm prints on the invisible wall, but the adults' hands were constricted, pulled into claws of tendon and bone which bled and seeped from broken nails and torn skin. Their palms crept from the shadows like blossoming pus, pale and moist and bloated. Even in the dim light, it was obvious that the people were wracked with starvation and suffering. And yet they didn't move. They didn't even seem to be breathing. They stood still, watching, pressing closer... glaring.

"Why... what...?" Numair whispered, his voice hoarse with horror. Daine shook her head, and as if the motion had broken the spell her words came out in a babble.

"I don't know, I don't... I woke up and they were there, all staring like that, and I don't know..."

"They can't get through the barrier." The man breathed out in a rush and stood up, almost pulling the girl to her feet and backing away from the people. Their eyes followed them, opaque as the dead, like the witched eyes on a wooden doll. Daine kept looking back as if the people would move if she looked away, and when they reached the river bank she sat facing them. Her shock had faded, and a small line appeared between her eyes as she began to think clearly.

"What do we do?" She asked, and caught her breath in a shallow gasp. "Numair, what are they doing?"

He shook his head and raised his hands, dragging power from the air and then sketching a shape over his forehead. When he opened his eyes and looked back at the people, the black pupils were flecked with silver shards. Jolyon flinched back, as unnerved by that shattered mask as he was by the shadows.

"Do you think they were there all night?" Jolyon whimpered, clutching at Daine's sleeve. The girl shivered and squeezed his hand reassuringly. She didn't know. She didn't want to think about it. They were so still and silent, and even the animals hadn't warned her that they were approaching.

"I haven't been startled like this in ages," She admitted quietly. Her confidence trickled back a little. "Well, I'm fair sure we can't just sit here forever. Numair, you can see what kind of curse they're under, right?"

"Curse?" He looked surprised, and then tugged at his nose. "It's not... I don't think it's a curse. There's no aura on them." He waved a hand at the people and then shivered and looked away from their piercing eyes. "I think..."

They never found out what he thought, because at that moment the sun broke through the morning clouds and lit the whole clearing in a soft amber light. As if their strings had been cut, the people behind the barrier moaned and swayed, and toppled to the ground. The noise of their voices and the odd crumpling of their bodies was suddenly human, and in that instant they were no longer terrifying. They were simply people, who groaned weakly and scrabbled at each other where they fell. A few of them crawled forward past the barrier's edge and reached out, pleading.

Both Daine and Numair immediately rose to their feet and headed for the crowd. The only signs that they were unnerved were in the bared weapons in their hands, and the slightly cautious gait of their steps. Other than that, they just seemed to radiate concern for the villagers.

"Come and help, boy!" Numair shouted back, his voice full of command. Jolyon hung back, wrapping his arms around himself.

"But... the barrier stopped them before." He whispered to himself, shuddering. "Only bad things can't get through."

888

They escorted the villagers back to Corus in a slow, meandering line. It wasn't a long journey along the King's Road, but the men, women and children drifted along in a dreamlike haze. They seemed detached rather than weak, as if their minds had not fully connected with their damaged bodies. Daine and Numair had briefly considered leaving them in the village and fetching help, but the villagers' confused ramblings and sickening sores convinced them that they needed to see healers as soon as possible. At the very least, it might get them away from whatever had done this to them.

They obeyed like biddable infants, lying down at night to sleep in one pack and rising when they were bidden. It was three days' walk, tedious for both its slowness and for the villagers' inability to say what had happened to them. While Numair walked with the villagers, guarding and studying them in equal measure, Daine and Jolyon darted about the woods hunting and gathering as much food for the crowd as they could.

On the second morning, Jolyon scowled at his meagre breakfast of a crust of bread and a few blackberries and walked as far away from the villagers as he dared to eat it. He hated to be near the empty-eyed people, but he had to return to thank Numair. He did this with rather bad grace. The mage smiled at him.

"They don't eat bread." Numair's voice was vague, but it made the boy stiffen guiltily.

"Who don't?" He blustered.

"Bats." Numair smiled more widely and gestured to the boy's tunic. "Like the one who you've been hiding in your shirt. I saw you giving it your bread, but there's no point. Bats are insectivores."

Jolyon reddened and tested out the word. "... they eat... insects?"

The man smiled and nodded. "You might try catching a few mayflies. You have time, and I'm sure your friend must be hungry."

The boy clutched his hands to his chest for a moment, looking defensive, and then relaxed when he realised that he wasn't going to be scolded or told to let the bat go. It wasn't as if he'd meant to keep it; when he had woken up the rest of the flock had left, but the tiny bat still snuggled warmly against his throat. The softness of its fur and even the prickle of its claws made him smile, and when he saw the creature's snub nosed face wincing against the morning light, he cuddled it closer with a rush of affection. It had fit into his tunic pocket as if it was meant to live there, and snored so softly that the sound could only just reach Jolyon's ears.

Jolyon had no idea how the man had worked out the bat was there. He didn't know that Numair had suffered through years of finding wriggling strays in his own clothes, and had spent at least three months teaching himself to watch where he trod. He also didn't know how much his own situation troubled the seemingly distracted mage.

Since they had found the village, Numair couldn't help himself from comparing Daine to her new stray. She did it herself: every interaction she had with him seemed to be eclipsed by her own memories, as she looked at the boy's warped childhood and tried to make it right. No-one had done that for her, when she was a child. She had to leave her country and her past life on her own two feet before anyone even asked her what name she liked to be called.

Jolyon was, Numair privately thought, as different from Daine as chalk from cheese. He was obnoxious where Daine was thoughtful, sulky where she had been shy. He had no magic and his interest in animals had started the night he discovered that the baker threw his stale rolls to the carrier pigeons. In many ways, Numair disliked the child. But he could also see the problems in the boy's life, the ones that could be so easily fixed with their own money and social standing, but crippling if the child tried to change things on his own.

So, the more Numair spoke to Jolyon, the more he started to echo Daine's sympathy. He discovered that the boy was crass on purpose, because it meant people wouldn't forget he existed. He had also shown a stubborn kind of courage at the village which rivalled most of the Rider recruits. Numair realised, on the second day of the walk, that he respected the child.

But the recruits wouldn't. They would demand more from the boy than a village full of shadows. And so Numair watched the child carefully, and wondered if he knew how difficult his life would soon become. He had seen it before and he knew that he couldn't intervene; this time, he was starting to think that perhaps he should.

Daine was thinking the same things, but for once she didn't dare to confide in her partner about them. She didn't know that Numair even remembered those weeks, back when she was first introduced to the palace. Her memory was quite different from his: where he remembered having to restrain his protective nature, she could only think of the sick heat of guilt and shame.

In the first year of her lessons, Daine's growing magic had fascinated animals for miles around. She didn't intentionally call them; she would walk into a farmhouse and hundreds of mice would swarm out of the walls, squeaking and climbing over her until she disappeared into the writhing mass. Or she would be sitting in a classroom, learning strategy with the pages when the Riders were away, and the room would suddenly grow dark as the castle ravens beat against the windows.

Daine didn't mind the animals so much as the humans around her. They would shriek, or run away, and then the animals would be scared. It would have taken her a few minutes to greet the curious ones and send them away; it sometimes took over an hour to calm down the frightened ones.

And then, when she finally emerged from the pack covered in feathers and claw marks and droppings, she would have to apologise to her teachers, or the farmers she was trying to speak to, or to her fellow students. She would see their eyes narrow at her stumbling words, and her shoulders would stoop in humiliation. They never believed that she wasn't just trying to show off.

While many of the students laughed and thanked her for the distraction, she began to feel the sting of others' jealousy and resentment. She was not one of them. Numair had been so enthusiastic when Jonathan offered her these extra lessons over the winter, and Daine was fascinated by the meticulous science of warfare, but when she looked up from her lesson books she missed Mari and her rider friends intensely. While they were learning how to make cold weather camps she couldn't even learn how to fit in with the first year pages.

The pages hurried past her in the hallways, or stared at her when she tried to slip into a desk at the back of the room. Whenever she was late to a class Daine dreaded pushing open the door, knowing that they would all glare at her while the teacher reprimanded her. They never giggled behind their hands as they did with other latecomers. Even the ones who were friendly avoided sitting beside her, knowing that their own hazing would grow worse, and that she would be gone when lambing season arrived.

That was bad enough, but the older students were worse. As they did with all of the first years, they hazed the girl with vicious tricks and mocking words, and tripped her up in the hallways. If she stumbled and fell then they mocked her clumsiness, knowing full well that she was trying to protect the animals hiding in her clothes from their cruelty. When she scrambled to her feet to face them down, the boys scolded her for not paying attention in swordsmanship.

"Oh, we forgot!" They jeered, "You think you're too special to swing a sword around with us, don't you?"

"I'm not training to be a knight." She replied, raising her chin so they wouldn't see her trembling. "And I don't think I'm special."

The pages weren't fooled for a second. "You think you're good enough to sit with us, though." They pulled faces at each other, ridiculous in their ugly arrogance. "Keep commanding your pathetic birds, peasant. You'll never convince anyone you're fit to command an army. But we..." The leader, Sava, gestured around the group, "... we will."

Daine forced herself to laugh. "Will your army run away from my pathetic birds as quickly as you did? Or will they just scream as loudly as your friends?"

The boy's face darkened, and he moved forward to press his finger into her chest. "Unless you have something better than birds to threaten me with, bitch, you'd better stop talking."

"How's this?" The girl asked softly. Sava blanched as he felt the prickle of something sharp against his chest. Where he was stabbing at her with his finger, she had pressed the point of a knife to his chest. It was a rough blade, and he might have laughed at the twine wrapped around the handle compared to the filigree of his own weapon... but his hand was nowhere near his hip, and unlike his blade, he realised that the girl's looked well used and very, very sharp.

He hadn't even noticed her drawing it.

After they skulked away, Daine sheathed her dagger and leaned back against the wall. She felt the rush of adrenalin trickling away, and as it left her feigned indifference was replaced with something else. She supposed she should feel frightened: the boys would never let her forget this; she had hurt their pride and if they stayed away then they would be a laughing stock. Scared off by a little foreign peasant girl! They would be scheming even now, trying to think of some way to pay her back.

And yet she wasn't afraid.

The more she thought about it, the more Daine realised that she was... angry. These boys had made her miserable for weeks, and why? Because she had wild magic? Because she was a girl? Because she was poor?

So what? None of those things made her weaker than them. Her anger bubbled into frustration. She had faced down immortals and rabid bears; why couldn't she face down a few bullies? She hated seeing the fear on the pages faces when the animals flocked to her, but Daine knew now that by trying to hide her magic from the boys she had only made them despise her more.

Gritting her teeth, she called as many birds to her as she dared and gathered them in a courtyard. For the first time she didn't care if anyone saw her; she quite deliberately met the eyes of every person who stared at her on their way past. The birds listened to her furious whisper with a few questioning peeps, and flew away as one towards the forest. There, Daine knew, they would easily find the bats.

The next morning she made sure that she was in the class early, so that she could sit at her desk and watch everybody coming in. The first few students greeted her in their normal, distant way. She smiled sweetly and kept watching the doorway.

Each of the bullies came in with his head lowered, eyes shadowed but bright as they darted from corner to corner. They looked absolutely shamefaced, and crept to their desks without making eye contact. The other students whispered to each other in confusion, but quickly stopped gossiping when the teacher came into the room. Daine hid a smile and stood up with the other students, ready to respectfully greet the absentminded old man who taught from behind a slate chess board.

It was lunchtime before the rumours got out: the maids whispered to each other in the corners, their laughter loud and echoing compared to their soft words.

Late last night, the boys had all run into the corridors, their eyes red with tears, shaking with terror. Two of them had been so scared that they had lost control of their bladders. They crouched in the dim torchlit hallway and shivered and clung to each other, sobbing so loudly that the head servant had woken up. She demanded to know what trick they were playing, and when they all confessed to having run away from nightmares her face was such a picture of disbelief that even the most frightened child found his cheeks grew red with shame.

The ghosts had scratched at the walls! The boys insisted, and then their fears came out in a babble of protestations: they chirped like laughing children, or maybe... more shrill, like a scream. And the scratching and the burrowing, not just on the walls but on the floorboards, and even in the chimneys...! The boys lit mage lights and candles, but in the brightness they could see that there was nothing in the room. The noises would stop, and the boys would just be drifting to sleep again when their uneasy dreams were plagued by hooting, and scraping, and the patter of tiny feet running towards them...

The matron sniffed at this nonsense, and sent the boys to sleep in the laundry. There were no monsters there, she told them, but there were vats where they could wash their own soiled linens, thank you very much!

Daine thought that she had gotten away with it and smiled serenely as she listened to the rumours. She was walking back towards Numair's rooms for her afternoon lesson when Sava stopped her in the corridor.

"I'll make you pay," The boy hissed, using his superior height to loom over the girl. She ducked under his arm to move away, but he grabbed her sleeve. "I don't know what you did and I can't prove it, but I know it was you."

"A fig for what you know." She said mulishly. He pulled a face and let her go. Strangely, he was smiling.

"There are rules here. They're called Chivalry. I'm not surprised a little peasant like you doesn't know what that means. And I figure that the knights won't be surprised that you broke them. No one would expect a little Gallan brat to follow the rules. You've just proved you don't belong here. When this story gets out I doubt a single one of them will want you to stay. Not even Master Salmalin."

She couldn't hide her reaction to that, and Sava laughed at her pale face. "Did you really think he'd defend you after you humiliated him in front of the whole court?"

Before he could turn his mockery into violence, she ran past him towards the mage wing.

After that the bullies backed off. Daine dreaded Sava's revenge, but the story never seemed to get out. Rumours began, mixed up in the ghost stories and just as fantastical, but not the vengeful exposee that the boy had promised. Daine wondered if Sava was waiting for her to feel safe before he told Numair what she had done. And the further she got from her revenge, the more guilty she felt at how small and petty she had been, using magic and her training for something so childish.

Even if Numair forgave her, she still dreaded him finding out. If he even heard the rumours she was sure that he would be disappointed in her. He had chosen her, and taught her magic lessons when she had seen him shake his head at other mage students who asked him to mentor them. He already had a student, he told them. If they wanted help then of course they could attend his lectures, but he couldn't take on another apprentice no matter how much they pleaded.

Of course, Daine knew that Numair was studying her wild magic as much as teaching her, but she was still overwhelmed by his favouritism. She felt that she had to earn his respect, and when she left tasks unfinished or struggled in one of his lessons she felt a sick burning in her stomach, knowing that those other mages would probably have found it so much easier.

Daine's guilt at her revenge grew over the next few days, until a thin feeling of dread followed her wherever she stepped. She stopped eating with the pages at lunch time. She didn't tell anyone what had happened. If any of her adult friends guessed, or heard any of the things that people were whispering about her, then they never mentioned it. Perhaps they thought that she didn't hear the insults, and believed that they were protecting her. But in reality all their silence did was produce a vague, isolated loneliness around that part of Daine's childhood. She might have spoken about it to anyone, but she didn't know them well enough yet, and she never seemed to find the chance.

After a few days the bullies swallowed their pride, and things returned to normal. As long as she could keep the worst of the hazing at bay, Daine figured that it was her own problem. The palace animals eventually grew used to her, but the whispers of the humans never left. They mingled with the guilt and haunted her.

They walked. The city grew closer.

888


	16. Family

They sent word ahead, and the guards at the city gates stopped them from passing through. They had been given orders to escort all of the villagers to the storage silos outside of the city limits. The enormous buildings had their own walled enclosure attached to the main city by a series of concealed gated tunnels, so that they could be safely accessed in a siege, but they meant that the farmers didn't have to bring their grain through the dense city streets. The villagers were to be held there until the healers were satisfied that they were healthy.

Baird had suggested in his mild voice that the strange bloated skin and sleepy idiocy could be symptoms of an infectious disease, rather than an attack. The healers also pointed out, archly, that they were better at detecting curses than a stronger mage who, nevertheless, had spent his life specialising in "flashy nonsense, not the superior, delicate art of healing". Numair pulled a face at that but didn't argue. After days of trying to unravel the mystery of the villagers, he was ready to admit defeat. If the healers thought they could do better he was happy to let them try.

Daine was just pointing out the distant castle towers to Jolyon when she heard Numair's voice breaking angrily: "You can't be serious!"

"Sir." The guard saluted while his comrades shuffled the gates a little more closed. "That's the order I was given, sir."

"Mithros' boots!" Numair ran a hand through his hair and turned away sharply. Daine followed him in surprise, wondering why they were walking away from the city they'd just spent so long trying to reach. The man slowed his angry steps so she could keep up, but his voice was still terse. "Another day with those... those sheep people, Daine! Because..." his voice took on a mocking tone, "If it's contagious, sir, you and the wildmage might have been exposed."

"We're not sick." Daine shook her head in astonishment and looked back towards the guards. Their hands still hadn't left their weapons. "Didn't you tell Jon in your message that these people aren't..."

"Of course I did." He snapped. "It's just some uppity healer trying to swing his weight around."

The girl sighed and looked forwards to the barns. She knew exactly how Numair felt. The villagers didn't seem to be dangerous, but they gave off an unsettling feeling which had grown worse the longer they stayed with them. Perhaps it was their blankness or their silence, or the strangeness of their missing story, but she had been looking forward to leaving them behind, too. Jolyon panted as he caught up with them, and the bat in his tunic squeaked its indignation at being shaken awake by his running steps.

"Let her out tonight." Daine said, distracting herself with practical matters. "She can hunt with Kilaba's roost. They're friendly enough."

Jolyon's hand crept up to the mammal's head. "What if she doesn't come back?"

"Then you'll know she's found something even better than you." The girl tried to smile, but the words sounded a little off. The boy looked sharply at her, trying to work out if she was being pert, and then ran ahead to choose his spot in the barn before the villagers filled it.

The barn was warm and dry, and surprisingly free of mice and rats. Daine had made sure of that, after she found out that the odd runes scratched into the walls were designed to make scavengers drop down dead. The farming mages didn't care that their clumsy spells were painful and messy; still, she couldn't justify contaminating the stores by scratching the marks away, as she longed to. Instead, she called the rodents to her and explained a few rules. If they only took the spoiled grain from the spilled bags and the ones damaged by frost, then she would tell them which routes to avoid.

The deal had been going for three generations of mice now, and it was so effective that the farmers had stopped carving new sigils into the walls. When they escorted the villagers into the largest barn Daine could only see a few new marks, and even fewer chewed sacks or droppings. The villagers slumped down against the sacks with their endless weariness, and the ones who didn't sleep straight away stared out of the door at the motte gate as the guards closed and barred it. The healers would come in the morning. Jolyon had dived into the guard house and was happily laying out his bedroll on the spotlessly swept flagstones by their fire, and for the first time in days Daine and Numair didn't have a single person to guard.

They climbed a ladder to one of the haylofts and pulled it up behind them. For some reason even the small illusion of privacy was intoxicating; after days of stealing brief touches when Jolyon wasn't looking, the sudden sense of freedom made Daine's head spin.

She found herself standing stupidly in the dusty attic, looking at the beams of evening sunlight which filtered through the roof beams and wondering if Numair felt the same way. Every inch of her skin seemed to shiver. It seemed ridiculous to Daine that something she hadn't really thought about for her whole life had become something which she couldn't live without. And yet when the hunger struck her it was that rich, and that painful. Her body seemed to starve and ache after just a few days. It troubled her, because there wasn't really any love or gentleness in that pain. It felt...

A memory startled her from her guilt, and she had to hide a blush under her hand. Of course Numair felt like this. He had told her so. _I want you too much._ She hadn't been able to think clearly at the time, for obvious delightful reasons, but... that must have been what he meant.

She looked up, and Numair was watching her. Dust from the ladder was still on his hands, but he didn't brush them off. He was as stricken by the warm stillness of this place as she was. When their eyes met Daine shivered and he moved closer, still watching her as if... as if what? His black eyes were as deep and unreadable as the shadows around them, and she couldn't tear her eyes away.

"I want you too much," She whispered the only words that still made any sense. He caught her chin and moved closer, stopping so close to kissing her that Daine found herself trying to press closer.

"Can you stay quiet?" He whispered back, brushing her lower lip with his thumb. She didn't know, but she would have agreed to anything if he would only come closer. She nodded and he finally closed those few inches and kissed her.

Any questions Daine had about how he felt fled in those few seconds; she could feel her own need and desperation echoed in his embrace. She returned it fiercely, almost feeling as if they were fighting as she matched the demanding heat of his lips, the racing thud of his heartbeat. And then they were moving backwards, tearing at each other's clothes, and her back was pressed against the wall, and when she mindlessly wrapped her leg around his own he lifted her up and oh gods, she couldn't help crying out, and he smothered her cry with another fierce kiss and kept thrusting into her with all the mindless passion she craved until she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and pushed him back into the straw, needing to return his control.

He looked up at her with those endless eyes, now full of heat and danger, and when his hands locked around her hips and pulled her hard against him Daine had to sink her teeth into his neck to keep from crying out. He made a choked sound and buried his face against her own throat, muffling his own cries of pleasure as wave after wave of trembling heat flooded through their bodies.

When he finally raised his face and kissed her he couldn't hold back the dark passion that still burned in his blood. She whimpered, cupping his face with a shaking hand. "Numair…" she whispered, not knowing what to say next. He reached up, and his own hand was shaking as he gently stroked her cheek.

"Are you okay?" He asked, his voice hoarse. She nuzzled against his hair in answer, feeling an odd numbness in being gentle after the thunderstorm of their lovemaking. He reached out and gently drew her down into his arms, looking a little worried when she couldn't hide a shiver. "Daine, sweetheart, are you alright?"

"How do you do it?" Daine asked raggedly, catching his arm with an odd urgency. He looked at her, his eyes still dazed, and she pulled futilely at the scraps of her shirt with her free hand as she tried to form words. They came out like an accusation, shaky words between panted breaths. "How do you always make me feel so… so…"

The man blinked and looked at her more closely. His eyes were worried. "Did I hurt you? I…" He looked away, and there was an odd note in his voice. "I've never felt like that before. Not so out of control. That was…intense."

She remembered the way he had held her against the wall, and her aching muscles fluttered anew in a shadow of pleasure. She shivered and pressed a hand against her stomach, still not able to catch her breath. "You didn't hurt me." She whispered, "Never. I just… I feel so…" her muscles clenched again and she made a soft noise, shuddering in the pleasure-pain of it.

He kissed her gently, almost apologising. He didn't say anything, thought, and kept holding her close. After a moment her shivering eased and he stroked her hair, his fingertips soothing. He was always like this when she was upset, but... was she upset? Everything had happened so quickly, and now her mind was reeling.

"Numair…"

"Ssh," he whispered, arms tight around her. She leaned her head against his shoulder, feeling tears start in her eyes but not knowing why.

"I don't understand. What's wrong with me? I'm happy. That was incredible." she whispered into his shoulder. She felt his warm lips press gently on her temple, and then they moved against her skin as he spoke softly,

"It's okay. It's a lot of emotions and feelings to have all at once, and sometimes it comes out as crying, that's all. You'll feel better in a moment, I promise."

She wiped her eyes and nodded, still shivering. "I'm fine." She said, her voice still a little defensive as she noticed that he looked worried. "Really. I'm just cold, that's all. My clothes are all torn up."

Raising an eyebrow at her, Numair reached a long arm out to his pack and tugged out one of his own shirts. He handed it to her with an affected pompous air, and she hid a giggle.

"I'll have no clothes left if we keep this up." The girl tugged off the ragged remains of her own shirt and pulled his over her head.

"Sorry," Numair's cheerful reply didn't sound sorry at all. Daine pulled a face and stood up, the shirt falling to her knees.

"Bet you'd like it if I was wandering around naked." She grumbled, and fetched her own bag, asking glibly. "You packed, didn't you? Did you even bring my clothes with you?"

"Of course I did! What do you take me for?" he retorted with exaggerated dignity, and then muttered under his breath, "Otherwise how would we have the fun of taking your clothes off? Be sensible, magelet!"

She hid a giggle under her hand. "Tearing them off, you mean."

"Look, I've only torn two of your shirts this week. I feel I've been very restrained."

"Restrained?" She caught his hand, raising an eyebrow in challenge.

"Every time I see you, Miss Sarrasri, I can't help wanting to tear your clothes off," He tapped her nose, teasing her, and then made a dismissive shrug, his voice growing more serious. "Except now, of course. Not now."

She glanced at him, unsure how exactly she was being teased. "Are you tired?" She asked tentatively, feeling a little guilty. He smiled gently and shook his head, lightly stroking her cheek.

"No, sweetheart. Honestly, I've never felt more alive in my life. You're rather… invigorating." He winked and then looked more seriously at her, his eyes concerned as he said, "It's just that you're wearing my favourite shirt."

She laughed out loud and cuffed his shoulder, remembering to lower her voice. "It's me or the shirt, dolt."

"Gods, what an agonising choice! Can't I love you both?" He rolled his eyes heavenwards in despair. "I might regret this for the rest of my life, you know."

"You'll regret it for the rest of tonight if you don't choose me,"

He grinned, acknowledging defeat, but couldn't resist gibing: "The shirt would have married me."

"You'd make a stunning couple." Daine smiled back, playing along without rancour. "I can just see you getting presented at court: Presenting Mrs Numair's-Shirt Salmalin..."

"You're right, it's not a very good name." He said thoughtfully, and his lip twitched. "you know what is a good name?"

"I swear by the gods, Numair, that if you say 'Veralidaine Salmalin' I will hit you."

"I wasn't going to!" He protested. She folded her arms.

"Well then, clever, what was it?"

"I've forgotten now."

"Of course you have."

Numair play-acted looking wounded, and then pulled her closer for a kiss. Daine pushed him away with a haughty look. "Nuh-uh. Not while your shirt is watching."

"I don't think…" He started, smiling, and then froze. "Did you hear that?"

The girl opened her mouth to make another teasing comment, and then she heard it too. The rather determined, very obvious footstep of someone wearing heavy boots and wanting to be heard. The soft noises of the sleeping villagers changed a little as they turned over in their sleep, but the walker clearly wasn't one of them.

"Do you think one of the soldiers… heard us?" Daine whispered, suddenly flaring beet red. She tugged the hem of the shirt a little lower over her bare legs. Numair frowned and shook his head, suddenly looking very unsure of himself. His uncertainty was contagious; he looked like a little boy who had been caught doing something wrong.

"It's Alanna," he whispered back, making a strange gesture to indicate that he could feel the aura of her gift.

"Oh gods!" Daine looked around at the messed up hay as if she could bury herself in it and hide away. "But she doesn't know about us!"

"Whatever you're doing up there, you have about ten seconds to stop doing it." A loud voice drawled up at them. "After that, _Numair_ , I'll drag Daine down, burn up that ladder and leave you up there to starve to death."

"She knows about us." Daine corrected herself, and sank back onto her heels. Underneath her mocking tone, the lady knight hadn't exactly sounded happy. Daine felt as if a hand was squeezing her stomach into a knot. Numair had gone just as pale, which made her feel even worse. Did he feel guilty for making love with her? After all, he was the one who had wanted Jolyon to keep their relationship a secret. Maybe he hadn't wanted anyone to find out. A sudden spark of anger at the thought made her sit up straight, and she prodded the idiot in the spine to make him snap out of his daze, and took a deep breath.

"What do you want, Alanna?" She called out, hating the strange way her voice croaked on those blasé words. There was the unmistakable sound of someone tapping their foot on the floor.

"Thayet sent me to get you." She called back. "We want to talk to you."

"I'm contagious!" The girl retorted, remembering why they were in this ridiculous situation in the first place. Alanna muttered something, and Daine yelped as the tingling strength of a magical hand closed around her waist. Before Numair could grab hold of her she was dragged forward and then falling from the hayloft. She held out her hands desperately, but then stopped abruptly an inch above the ground. Scowling at Alanna, she stood up and made a show of brushing straw from her knees.

"You look fine to me." The woman scowled and then glared up into the loft. "Throw her clothes down, you ass!"

"You don't have to be so…" Daine started, and then shrank back from the woman's withering glare. She couldn't help thinking that her own ma would have acted in just this way if she had caught her daughter rolling around in the hay. The fact that Sarra had given them her blessing seemed very far away. Alanna was much closer, and she grabbed Daine's wrist and frogmarched her out of the barn the moment that the girl had pulled on some clothes. As a last, rather petty, gesture, the woman had indeed used her magic to destroy the ladder.

"Very funny, Alanna!" Numair yelled down after her. "You know I can just use my magic to make another one!"

"You know I have a very sharp sword!" She bellowed back. "You'd better stay up there!"

They walked very quickly across the fields back to the castle gate. Alanna was breathing heavily, but Daine knew that it was more from anger than from the exercise. Whenever she said anything the woman barely looked at her, and her hand was very tight around the girl's wrist. Normally Daine would have shapeshifted or simply planted her feet and refused to take another step, but she was cowed by Alanna's fury. She had seen her livid before, but had always been relieved that she had not been the target for such outrage. Now she was, and she had no idea how to deal with it. She didn't want to apologise, because she hadn't done anything wrong, but she didn't want to fight with the woman over something which still didn't make complete sense in her own mind. The surety of everything being _acceptable,_ which she had felt near Numair, trickled away for the first time since they had become lovers. In her mind she heard a rough voice, saw a wizened healer gesturing obscenely to her naked ring finger.

Underneath her rising sense of guilt another emotion made her pause. She didn't want to argue with Alanna, she realised, because she understood why the woman was upset. She had already thought how similar the woman's reaction was to Sarra's; before today, Daine hadn't really understood how Alanna saw her. Usually she would have described her as a friend: someone who she had fought alongside, and who she shared stories with over campfires. But Alanna had also watched Daine growing up, and had known her as a child. Daine would have never thought of the brash, crass woman as a kind of parent, but she realised that Alanna felt the same kind of responsibility towards herself as she did to Aly, her own daughter.

The thought made a chill burn through her veins. She couldn't imagine how furious Alanna would have been to find Aly half-naked in a hayloft with a man twice her age. Her mind shied away from it, because really, it was too awful to contemplate. But now… gods, now she was right in the middle of it.

She followed the knight obediently through the palace and held her tongue, and hoped with all her heart that Thayet would be able to calm the woman down.

"When did you find out?" She couldn't help asking as they neared the royal wing. Alanna growled a curse under her breath.

"How long has it been going on?" She retorted, giving the girl a good shake. "I found out you'd both been _lying_ to me when Thayet told me you'd arrived."

"Less than a fortnight." The girl said softly. "The first time was… Alanna, please don't be angry. We haven't lied to you. We haven't even seen you since it started."

"And how long before that was he making eyes at you? Whispering heated words into your ear?" Alanna rounded on her fiercely. "Why wouldn't you tell us what was going on? We could have helped you!"

"It wasn't like that." Daine returned the fierceness. "He's my friend! He would never…"

"Never what? Push you down into the hay?" Alanna saw the girl's deep blush and smiled humourlessly. "I know the man, Daine. I know how he acts around women. I just never thought he would treat you so contemptibly."

"I'm not one of his women." She snapped, hurt on Numair's behalf. Alanna looked away, her mouth fixed in a narrow line.

"No, you're not." Her voice sounded half strangled. "You're his ward. What he's done to you is sick."

"He hasn't done anything!" Daine pulled her hand away so violently that Alanna had to let go. "Gods above, Alanna! You of all people shouldn't lecture me on…!" She bit her lip, realising that she had gone too far.

The knight went beetroot red, and had just opened her mouth to retaliate when a thin, white hand fell onto her shoulder. Alanna flinched away with a curse and stomped off into the depths of the castle, glaring balefully at the castle cats. Daine could hear their scathing insults in her mind as Thayet beckoned her into the sunlight solar. As the queen led her to the side of a warm fire, Daine explained what had happened.

"Oh dear." Thayet said, trying not to laugh. "So Alanna's run off in a sulk, and Numair's stuck in the hay barn, and we're left to try to sort out the mess." Her smile faded a little and she squeezed Daine's shoulder. "The quarantine was my idea. I wanted to give Alanna an extra night to get used to the idea before she saw you. I'm sorry for setting her off. She didn't believe my story for a single second."

"Mine, neither." Daine sighed and shook her head. "She thinks Numair seduced me."

"At the risk of sounding indelicate, may I ask…?"

"He didn't." The girl smiled a little and blushed. "If I'm being honest it was almost the other way around. Alanna would be amazed at how many of her misgivings he agreed with."

"But you convinced him otherwise." Thayet guessed. Daine shrugged, looking a little awkward. She remembered the letter which the queen had written to her, urging her to wait and be patient, and felt ashamed of how badly she had followed the advice.

"To be honest, I don't know if he's convinced. I confused him and argued with him and cussed near played the harlot until he forgot the word 'shouldn't' and that's about how it happened. After the first time we… well, after that, we haven't really talked about it anymore. It's not like we can undo what we've done."

"Hm." Thayet leaned back in her chair, slouching in a distinctly unregal fashion. "But then, naturally, our dear Lioness will insist that you must have gotten the idea to seduce him from somewhere, and if not from Numair, then…" she sighed and smiled. "At some point, one of you must have introduced the idea of… shall we say 'flirting with convention'? And forgive me, but that's a conversation which can unravel even the strongest friendships. I can't see you risking that."

"No," Daine twisted her hands in her lap and admitted, "It was him. He… he'd thought I'd been killed by these spidren, and I guess… he wasn't thinking about conventions, and… and afterwards we half acted like nothing had happened because there was so much other stuff to think about, and then the war was over and we had all this time and he was talking and talking but not doing a single thing about it. So then I decided that it was my turn."

"How very pragmatic." Thayet grinned at the sight of Daine rolling her eyes. "It means practical, Daine. A word I'm far more likely to use around you than Numair. It doesn't suit him, and besides, he'd doubtless correct me on my pronunciation." She feigned a wince and then smiled when Daine laughed. "Good, a smile! You'd think we were discussing a funeral, not two people in love."

"We're discussing Alanna being angry at us." Daine pointed out more gloomily, "Which is closer to a funeral. And Numair's still banished to the hay loft with all those villagers."

"I'll send some of my most trusted pages to rescue him." Thayet drawled. She gestured to a servant and then winked at the girl when the young man bowed, grinned evilly, and left. "If he can suffer the embarrassment then you two might just get through the next few days."

"Days?" Daine blinked at her, and then realised what she was referring to. Now that Alanna knew, their secret would get out faster than bubbles rose in cider. The woman had spent half of her life keeping a secret so massive it could have had her executed for treason; after that, her ability to hide the things which annoyed her had reached an impressive zero. The fact that her husband was a renowned spy master made that fact even more hilarious. In some ways, many people suspected that Alanna's short temper was a disguise for her capacity to keep secrets safe beneath it. Thayet had pointed out that Alanna had absolutely no control over her sharp tongue and fiery nature, but as to secrets, she couldn't possibly comment.

That was with state secrets, of course. When it came to the disquieting idea that one of the most notorious soldier-mages in the realm had seduced his eighteen year old apprentice, Alanna would be unable to hide her disgust. What she didn't tell people, they would guess. What they couldn't guess, they would invent. And the servants had been listening too, hadn't they? By morning, the entire court would be seething with people who cared about the rumour more than the truth.

"You knew it was going to happen." Thayet pointed out. Daine winced.

"Yes but… but not right now, and definitely not while we were here!" A suspicious thought came to her, and her eyes narrowed at the queen. "Did you plan this? Is this why we were sent for?"

"Yes." The woman said simply, and waved away Daine's gasp of outrage. "It's better for everyone if you're both here to put the rumours to rest."

"But the rumours are _true!"_ Daine cried. "We can't defend ourselves!"

"Oh, so he really did mix potions into your food to make you desire him? And he kept your lessons private so he could teach you the kinds of magic poor women sell for coppers under the docks? Have you heard the rumour about the illegitimate Gallan orphan who seduced our Black Mage to get her hands on his money?"

Thayet's smooth voice held none of the cruelty of her words, but it was enough to make Daine recoil. What horrible stories! And yet… and yet she could hear them being spoken by gossiping lips in the market place, by people who really would believe such lies and tell them over and over again, because they made their friends gasp when they said them.

"If you stay here," the woman said gently, "The worst of it will be over in days. If you hide from this then it might take years."

Daine shook her head in disbelief and found that she was fighting back hysterical laughter. It wasn't at all funny, but she had only just broken free of her own vicious spiral of rumours, and now another one was likely to begin! "Why are you telling me this, and not Numair?"

"Jon and I want to speak to him alone." Thayet made a vague motion with her graceful hand. "I know most of my information from your letter, Daine. I need to be seen as fair. The more official we can be, the easier it will be to convince people of the truth. Are you going to marry him?"

"No." Daine answered the abrupt question automatically, and her eyes widened. "Why?"

"Has he asked you to marry him?"

"More than once." The girl looked at her feet. "I said no."

"Why?" Thayet's kind eyes grew sharper. Daine shrugged, feeling like a scolded child with no more excuses left to offer.

"I love him because I love him, not because I swore to the Mother that I would obey my husband." She muttered, not wanting to look up. "I know exactly how the priests will look at me, Thayet. Illegitimate peasants don't marry noble scholars. All those stories about me seducing him, or him only being interested in me for sex… those would be just as painful when they're talking about why we're standing at the altar. I have other reasons, too, but those are plenty."

"But you've met you're parents, Daine! They're…! Well, you can't still see yourself like that!" The queen exclaimed, looking pale. Daine shook her head and looked away.

"Maybe not. I don't know. You were the one saying we have to face down the rumours. People are never going to believe that my da is a god, are they? So nothing's going to change. I've always known what people say about me. They didn't always say it behind my back, you know. But until now I don't think Numair has really thought about what it would mean to tie himself to that. He hasn't heard the worst of the rumours. And I don't want him to."

"That's an idiotic excuse." Thayet said it without thinking, and saw the girl close herself off like she was snapping a book closed behind her eyes. Without answering, she stood up, bowed stiffly to the queen, and left. The woman folded her arms and huffed in frustration, wishing she could run after the girl and drag her back into the room. She wasn't quite sure if she should argue with her or apologise.

There was a gentle rap at the door a few minutes later, and the page peeked around the edge. "Master Salmalin's here." He announced, and his face fell. "Rescuing him wasn't as funny as I thought it would be. He's in a bad mood."

Thayet sighed and nodded. Numair's stubbornness was even more formidable than Daine's, and she already felt exhausted. Her voice was full of nervousness. "Let him in."

Numair stepped in silently, waved the page away, and shut the door behind him. Thayet had been expecting him to be angry, or to have some argument ready. His silence unnerved her. He stood for a long moment staring at the door handle as if it were the only thing keeping him sane, and then shook his head and looked around.

"Thayet," He said in a voice that was closer to shame than defiance, "I'm so sorry."


	17. Circle

Daine was too angry to realise that she was genuinely having a bad afternoon. She blamed all of the things that irritated her on her mood, and it was only after a few hours had passed that a shred of pragmatism in her seething mind pointed out that, actually, nothing seemed to be going right. She couldn't find anybody (she had blamed this on Thayet's ambush, and had no qualms about cursing under her breath at the woman's assumed co-conspirators). Kitten had disappeared as soon as they had reached the city, and although Daine was used to the dragon's independent streak she felt hurt by that, too, as if the little immortal had done it out of spite after her week of petty jealousy.

When she headed to Numair's rooms she found that they were locked and empty, and her own rooms smelled stale and unclean, as if the cleaners hadn't bothered to think of her. The hallways were too crowded after the peace of the tower, and the coolness of the evening was slightly too sharp after the heatwave they had just suffered through.

It was the cold which made her pause and think over the past few hours. Thayet had summoned her back here, claiming that she was doing it out of kindness or tenderness… but she hadn't remembered to tell the servants to expect them. Even if they had still been banished to the barn, the queen would have still sent some dinner. She treated hospitability with the kind of seriousness most people reserved for formal occasions alone. Daine was a little relieved when she trudged down to the kitchens and discovered the cooks in the midst of preparing food for the villagers. At least they hadn't been forgotten.

She shook her head and smiled her thanks at the head cook, who raised a sweating head to nod towards the stew pot. Instead of sitting down with the eating servants, she took a few pasties and a flagon of juice and headed back into the cool night air.

Jolyon was still in the guard's room, making bold comments about their card game and generally making a pest of himself. When Daine asked if she could speak to the boy they made a great show of escorting him out of their room and pointing towards one of the shabbier barns. Daine thanked them and gave them a basket full of food and handed Jolyon his own to eat while they walked. The boy devoured the savoury pastry in three bites and belched loudly.

"I was just about to go to bed." He lied. "This had better be important."

"It is," Daine said seriously. "I need your help with something."

The boy stopped in the doorway of the barn and looked speculatively at her, but waited for her to explain in silence. The girl chewed her lip nervously and thought it best just to come out with it.

"Joly, there's going to be a lot of… of nasty stories going around. Stories about me and Master Salmalin."

"Stories about you moaning together in the hay loft?" The boy said, grinning wickedly. Daine reddened and pressed her hands to her hot cheeks, wishing the ground would swallow her up. Of course he'd overheard. The nosy brat had probably been listening in, she thought gracelessly. She didn't recognise the same mischievous streak in the boy which had once made her listen through keyholes.

"Yes." She snapped, and lowered her hands apologetically. "But not just that. Bad lies about us."

"I'll tell everyone they're not true," Jolyon promised with puppyish loyalty, adding, "If you tell me which ones really happened, of course. The guards were wondering if you turn into animals when you're… never mind." He cackled and shook his head, full of the idiot bravado of a prepubescent boy who thought he knew everything the adult world had to offer. "I'll let them guess."

"Jolyon." Daine said through gritted teeth. "I'm asking you to stay out of it. Pretend you don't know anything at all."

"That's no fun." He sulked.

"It'll be worse if people think you're involved." Her voice was so serious that Jolyon's bright smile faded. She took a taper from the torch outside the barn and lit a candle, lowering her voice and beckoning him to sit beside her in a circle of grain sacks. "The people here have nothing to do except gossip. If you start going to classes with their children and those stories arrive with you, then you'll be hazed and laughed at by every rich idiot with their nose in the air. Gods know what they'll say about you. So I want you to act like you barely know us. That you followed us here, and we let you tag along."

"You want me to… to stay away from you?" The boy sounded impossibly hurt. Daine shook her head and gave him a quick hug.

"Only for a few weeks, I promise." She said. "I…"

She stopped speaking as if she had been struck by lightning, and stared into space with a frozen expression. Jolyon opened his mouth to say something, and then gasped as she clapped her hands to her head and sobbed.

"Daine!" Jolyon grabbed at her wrists, trying to pry them away from her ears so he could speak to her. "What's wrong?"

"I…!" She gasped, and then choked and doubled over. She could feel the boy fluttering around her, shaking her shoulders and even patting her back as if she really was choking. But it wasn't that; there had been a sound, like a dull roar, which grew and grew until the pain was unbearable. That hadn't been the worst of it; just as the noise was ebbing away the silence began. It was as if a thick blanket was smothering the air from her lungs, but instead of oxygen every scrap of her magic was being starved of sustenance. For a few heartbeats she was terrified, every nerve screaming out for her to fight against her assailant. But there was no one hurting her, and no way to fight. She curled up in a ball and pressed her hands to her ears and shrieked, and she could barely even hear her own voice.

"Daine!" The boy was saying, over and over, "What's wrong? What's…?"

She bit her lip and tasted blood and knew that her nose was bleeding. How could he not hear it? How could he bear to speak, to make more sound, against that ruthless silence? And then the thought made her hands close into fists. He couldn't hear it. He couldn't…

Choking in pain and sobbing without realising it, she drew herself tighter and forced herself to breathe. The very second she could grasp the bare edges of her core, she snapped off her link to the people.

The noise stopped instantly.

Dimly, she could hear the boy crying. He was gripping her shoulders, lying half over her curled up back so that she could barely move. The sound of normal things made her want to laugh, but instead Daine drew a shaking breath and uncurled a hand. She pushed Jolyon away, and saw that her hand was as twisted and bloodied as the villagers' had been. She must have been tearing into the ground with her bare hands, clinging to the earth as if it would protect her.

"Jolyon," She croaked, and pushed herself a little more upright. "I'm… I'm alright."

He sat up, sniffling back tears, and gave her a withering look. Daine remembered that her nose was bleeding, and wiped some of it away with the back of her hand. Something in the night air made her pause, and she lowered her hand to her dagger without thinking about it. "It's very quiet." She whispered. "There are no… no bats, no animals…"

"You screamed so much they all ran away." The boy muttered, adding. "You scared me."

"I can't hear the villagers either, or the guards." Daine sat up a little straighter and looked around the dark room. She wished she could transform her eyes so that she could see in the dark, but doing that would mean turning her magic back on, and even the thought of that aching silence made her skin crawl. She thought back to her childhood, when she would check snares in the woods and listen out for bandits and wolves with her own human ears. The silence was thick and menacing, but there was something beneath it.

Silence. The barn was full of thick, soft shadows. But underneath that gossamer darkness she could hear a soft whispering sigh. The sound of… people. Many, many people. Not moving, not walking or fidgeting. Scores of people standing in the darkness around them, frozen, watching, and… breathing.

Daine caught her breath and looked around, her heart racing. There were no animals here to help; the sound had scared them away. There were no other humans around, and she dreaded to think why the guards were being so silent. She frantically scanned the barn and her eyes lit on a small, frost-marred sack which Jolyon must have dragged closer to support her head when he thought she was having a fit. Praying to the goddess and willing her pounding heart to stay quiet, she slowly slipped her hand into the tear in the hessian and nearly wept when her fingers met coarse, dense crystals.

"Daine," Jolyon said in a normal, horribly loud voice. "If you tell me where the healers are I can run to fetch one."

"I don't need a healer." She replied softly, not taking her eyes off the darkness. Drawing her hand out of the sack, moving slowly like a hunter facing down a skittish deer, she began to move her arm in a large arc. The breathing grew a little louder, and she couldn't help a small, harsh intake of breath as her heart leapt into her throat.

"What are you doing?" The boy asked, and now he had picked up on her fear and his own voice was nervous. "Daine…"

"Nothing's wrong." She said, her voice completely flat, her eyes unblinking. She finished the loop of salt and whispered a few words, then reached back into the bag and took out another handful. The coarse grains burned the splits in her nails as she quickly made a few piles of salt at different points in the circle, and pressed her thumb into the center of one of them. The others, she patted down flat and sketched symbols into.

"That's a protection circle, that is." Jolyon looked a little impressed, despite his fear. "I've seen them on mage signs. You have to pay two coppers to get a mage to cast one of them, and then they're useless 'soon as you break the salt."

"Hush," Daine frowned, concentrating, and pressed her thumb back into the thumbprint. "I need to do this right."

"You don't have the gift. It won't work." The boy looked into the darkness. "What… what do you think is outside?"

"I don't." The girl swallowed and looked him in the eye, and Jolyon whitened at the fear on her face. "They're not outside. They're in here, with us."

Jolyon squeaked and grabbed at her sleeve so suddenly that Daine cursed and flinched back from the salt. He had nearly spoiled the whole thing, and any second those things could strike. She knew they were just the villagers, ordinary men and women who still smiled feeble thanks when they were given food and walked with aimlessly interwoven hands. But now… now the air was thick with anger, and silence, and she had no idea what to expect.

"What are we going to do?" The boy managed, his voice hoarse. An accusing sharpness flooded his eyes and he gestured at the salt. "Your useless circle won't do anything! You can't trigger it!"

Daine decided it was best to ignore him. She raised her hands to her throat and unclasped the badger claw. In her haste it fall heavily to the ground. The dull thud sent up a cloud of chaff, and for a second she could see the wheat dust drifting away towards the door. The candlelight illuminated the soft powder. When it was a few feet outside of the circle it suddenly stopped, scattered into a thousand pieces by a sudden, rapid movement. When the dust faded the candlelight illuminated the darkness, closer now, denser. The immovable mass of silent, corpselike men and women were moving through the impenetrable darkness like ghouls.

Daine's fingers shook when she picked up the claw, and it took her a few desperate moments to find what she was looking for. For a horrible moment she thought that it had fallen off after all. Numair had made her test it, and he insisted that the godly blessing which kept the claw around her throat would also carry anything attached to the claw. It took a second to find the tiny stone, but when her fingers found the rough edges of it, Daine nearly wept.

"Etymology." She whispered, pressing her finger to the stone. It immediately fell loose into her waiting hand. Seeing the boy's sudden confusion made her want to laugh and cry at the same time. "It's a word Numair figured I would never use by accident."

"What does it mean?" Jolyon asked, trying bravado. Daine held her breath and pressed the stone into the middle of her thumb print.

"It means we might have a chance." She said, and leaned forward to breathe onto the stone. The crown of her head tingled as she bowed it downwards, and she couldn't help imagining those rapid, loping limbs crashing down through the darkness, and those long broken fingers ending in the shards of her broken skull.

Her breath was shallow and shook so much that she had to breathe on the stone twice before she was sure. It shone in the candlelight, and when she took a deep breath and blew on it the loose salt didn't even tremble. It had become solid, as firm and immovable as the stone walls of a keep, and just as skilled at keeping dangers at bay. Daine sighed and sat back on her heels, feeling relief rushing through her body like warm water.

"It's not a big circle," She warned the boy. "Stay low and try not to move too much. They can't break through, but there's nothing stopping us from breaking it from the inside." She smiled crookedly and lay down, looking at the barely perceptible shimmer in the globe above their heads. "The trick for living through most battles tends to be just trying not to be stupid or clumsy."

Jolyon was silent for a long time, studying the salt with distracted eyes. "My father isn't very clever." He said.

"Oh." Daine looked away and wished she hadn't. The shadows had eyes, now. Baleful eyes which caught the candlelight and blazed it back at them. She told herself that the candle would burn out soon, and then wished that the thought hadn't occurred to her. The only thing worse than being surrounded by the silent, staring creatures was being surrounded by them in the dark. Somehow, she knew that they would keep staring, even in the darkness.

"What was that thing?" Jolyon pointed at the stone which was now entombed in the solid salt. "Was it expensive?"

Daine connected the question to his last comment and scratched her nose awkwardly. "It's not something you can buy," she started, evading the subject, and then she sighed. She knew exactly what the boy was thinking. His father might have needed protection. Might he have bought it for a few gold coins? After her thoughtless comment about survival it would be the utmost hypocrisy to have bought her way out of danger, when so many people couldn't even afford a loaf of bread. Jolyon looked at her with accusing eyes, and she decided to explain. She didn't feel like telling stories, but the combination of his hatred and the horrific things outside was too much for her to defend herself against.

"N… Master Salmalin gave it to me last year." She said softly. "When the war was at its worst, and we had to split up. We were so used to working together that… I made a joke that I didn't feel safe on my own. He took it seriously. Of course he did." She smiled humourlessly and shrugged. "I should have known better than to say something like that. Maybe I even meant it, a little. But afterwards, when I found out what he… I was so angry at him, and at myself, I volunteered for the very next patrol and wouldn't you know it, we were ambushed. Ten hours we were trapped in a milk cellar, too scared to sleep in case we snored too loudly and the stormwings realised that some of us were still alive. In the morning they moved on and we went home, and Numair scowled at me a fair bit and then taught me how to use the stone."

"You left out half the story." Jolyon prompted her, rolling his eyes. "What did Master Salmalin do to make you so angry?"

Daine fiddled with the clasp of her chain, making sure the badger claw was secure around her throat. She ran her fingers along it and felt the tiny etched rune which had been holding the gemstone in place. "He'd already taught me some Gift spells. They were mostly basic spells which he had reinforced or improved. The idea was that if I saw another mage casting a weak spell, I would be able to help them or… or at least let our captains know that the protection might not hold. I thought that he was teaching me because it meant I had to learn how to read runes, and then he could send me on errands to the library or make me look things up in his books."

Daine paused and frowned at the claw. Thin lines of pale light were shining in its surface. She realised that the silver metal was reflecting back anything which shone out of the darkness. Those small, crescent shaped lines… they were the thin shining strips of teeth, bared in grimacing smiles as the shadows moved in. They were close enough now that if they had looked around they would have seen their shapes, their sinuous seeping limbs oozing into the dusty ground. Daine swallowed and obstinately stared at the ceiling, making her voice a little louder to distract the child.

"When I teased him about us splitting up he didn't say much, but he looked fair thoughtful and wandered off into his study and I thought, well maybe he thinks I'm being silly. I was trying to make him smile. We were so deep in the war it was always fighting or finding better spells or teaching me and other mages, and I missed my friend being a friend. I guess maybe he felt the same way but… well, back then I didn't really talk to him about things like that, I just tried to get him to smile again."

"He smiles a lot now." Jolyon offered, his own voice a little too loud. Daine heard the low sigh of the breathing drawing so close that she knew they must be a few inches away, crawling along the floor to be at her level, creaking out their fetid breaths on the other side of that thin line of salt. She clenched her hands into fists.

"We're not fighting now," She said through gritted teeth. "And anyway he disappeared, and then he called me into his rooms the next morning and gave me that opal, and I asked him what it was for. He told me it held magic – as much as a normal person could cast before exhausting themselves. A day's worth, maybe more. I didn't want to believe him. I was so angry at him, I just… well, I already told you that part."

"But you still haven't told me why!" Jolyon protested, his fingers gripping at her sleeve. His skin was icy cold. Daine pressed her hand over it and knew he could feel that she was also trembling.

"You can't just make magic come from nowhere. It has to come from a mage." She nodded at the opal. "So… so I knew that he had sat down and poured his own magic into that stone. And magic isn't just like a goblet you can refill, Jolyon. He had to give it up, decide to never get it back, just to fill that little stone." She looked up at the ceiling and saw the thin fingers scrabbling at the edge of the magical barrier. "He gave me a day of his life because I made a stupid joke."

"Daine," The boy looked up at the emaciated fingers, the hollow-eyed expressionless faces. "I'm kinda glad he did."

"Me too." Daine wrapped her arm around Jolyon's shoulders and held him closer. She felt her dress growing wet where he was crying. His voice was muffled.

"Daine, I'm scared."

The girl looked up at the flickering black magic and buried her head in the boy's hear, unable to keep her own tears from falling. "Me too."

888


	18. Sleep

They ran towards the barn with silent feet, although Thayet still had enough breath to pant out, "How do you know she's there?"

"She used a focus stone I gave her." Numair gasped back, his words clipped. The queen glanced at Alanna and Jon, whose expressions had darkened at the words. Alanna loosened her sword in its sheath, and Jon's hand dropped to his dagger. Thayet caught her breath and tightened her own fingers around her belt knife, wishing it was slightly less ornamental. She understood that whatever a focus stone was, it was something Daine would not have used unless she was in danger.

Numair's sudden panic had told her that something was wrong, but it wasn't until he ran out of the royal suite and started barrelling towards the castle gates that the queen realised that the danger was still going on. Alanna and Jon had raced to catch up with him immediately, so she had thought that the mages had felt a surge of magic like when the barrier fell. Instead, it seemed, they were all following Numair – and he was following the draw of a focus.

When they got to the barns Numair held up a hand and gestured for them to be quiet. The buildings were square shadows in the soft shapes of the fields, unbroken by a single light from even the guardhouse window. Thayet felt her skin crawling, although everything looked peaceful enough. There was a palpable sense of uncanny coldness in the air. Jon gripped her wrist and muttered a few words, and then cast the same shielding spell around himself. Casting a dim mage light, they began to creep into the courtyard.

The guards were dead. They could smell that even before they slipped through the timbers of the broken door. The sharp copper smell of blood was overpowered by something fetid and foul. When they opened the door to the shared room each of them flinched away. The foulness was spilled onto the floor, muddying the blood into a putrid mess. Each man lay on his back; his stomach had been ripped open and the intestines dragged out, but that wasn't the worst thing. The killers had done the same thing to their heads. They must have smashed their skulls into the stone flood until they cracked, and then reached in and…

Jon made a retching sound and looked rapidly away. Thayet was glad that she wasn't the first one to choke back bile. It was unthinkable to look any more closely; they backed into the open courtyard and dragged in lungfuls of the sweet night air, spitting and choking to get the disgusting smell out of their mouths and noses. It didn't help.

"Gods above," Alanna cursed, drawing her sword and glaring into the darkness. "What monster did that? Had the strength to pull apart their ribs and… and…" she swallowed and spat on the ground. Numair shook his head, his dusky face shining pale in the mage light.

"Not a monster. People. Lots and lots of people, all working together." He pointed aimlessly at the empty barn and shook his head a second time. "The villagers woke up."

"But they're just normal people!" Jon protested. "The healers at the gates would have noticed if anything was wrong with them, or if… by Mithros, Numair, you told me there were children among them!"

"There are." Numair scratched his nose fitfully and drew a deep breath. "They can't get through our shields. Let's go."

They crept forwards far less confidently now, but made their way through the complex of wooden buildings. They all seemed to be deserted, and each time it was a little more difficult to push open the door. They expected something to jump out at them at any moment, and ended up playing rapid games of stone-sheaf-shears to choose who would turn the door handles. The last building was the most run-down, and even in the darkness they could see the uncertainty on Numair's face. Just because his focus was nearby didn't mean that Daine was still using it. They thought of the horror on the guard's faces far too often, and when Alanna pushed the door open she had to force her hand not to tremble.

At first they thought that this barn was empty, too. It was dark, and quiet. But the sense of unease was so palpable here that even Alanna took a step back and checked that the hard, safe wall of the barn was at her back. Then they moved forward, as silently as they could, but even that soft motion was too loud for their nervous ears.

They saw the shapes, finally, in a sudden rush of fear. They might have been looking into the darkness, only suddenly it seemed to be closer, and then a hand moved and a huge mass blocked their way. So many people, people crawling on the ground and milling around and staggering into one another. Their eyes were unblinking in the darkness, and they paid no attention to the mage light at all.

At first it seemed as though their movement was aimless, and that they had simply retreated here after their murderous rampage to let the blood and shit dry onto their skin. After a moment Numair made an odd sound, and held his hands out in front of him. The solid wall of his shield bloomed outwards, shoving people to either side and sending them sprawling to the floor.

"You trapped her in here," He hissed at the people who were clawing at the new shield with sudden grimaces on their silent faces. "You surrounded her in the dark, didn't you?"

The villagers didn't answer, but the ones on the floor crawled back towards their prize. Numair grimaced and followed them, holding the shield with one raised hand which shook in anger. The others followed him, with Alanna raising her sword.

"Don't kill them." Jon said to the knight, his own voice steady. "They're civilians."

"They set a trap!" She hissed back. "That takes an intelligent mind and a Mithros-cursed vendetta. You can't tell me they're… they're brainwashed or just going feral and tearing those men apart…"

"Don't kill them." He repeated, and this time it was clearly an order. "We'll shield them in when we've gotten Daine out. Then…"

"Master Salmalin!" A thin voice broke through their whispered conversation. They looked around from the shuffling mass of glass-eyed, bloodstained people to see a small child who also seemed to have blood on his hands and clothes. Numair kneeled down beside him, but didn't reach out to the boy or to the huddled shape beside him. When the others came closer they saw the ring of salt on the ground.

"Hello, Jolyon." Numair said in the dangerously calm voice he used when he was very, very worried. "Are you hurt?"

"Huh?" The child looked at his hands and shook his head. "No, it's Daine's. She had a nosebleed."

"I see." The man didn't break eye contact with the child. "So she's not hurt either. She's just tired from casting the shield."

Jolyon raised his head to nod, and then bit his lip and looked down at the girl beside him. "I don't know, sir. She didn't tell me what was wrong, she just got a nosebleed and screamed a lot and then she was better but she told me the monsters were coming and that if I messed up the salt they'd likely kill us. Then she fell asleep, sir."

"Wake her up." Numair's voice shook a little, but he still sounded as if he were giving instructions to a classroom full of students. The child ducked his head in a respectful nod and shook Daine's shoulder obediently. She groaned and rolled onto her side, and then opened her eyes a little. When they focused on Numair she smiled.

"Wha' took you so long?" She asked in a slow burr. The villagers moved a little at the sound of her voice, and her tired eyes focused on them and then drifted closed again. Jolyon shook her a second time, and then poked her cheek with a grubby finger and sighed.

"She's sleeping again." He announced, "Same as last time. She keeps getting more and more difficult to wake up."

"Jolyon, I need you to listen to me." Numair said, ignoring the horrible sick feeling of dread in his stomach to make himself sound calm. "I can't hold the spell here and break through the one Daine cast at the same time, so I need you to help me. You have to break the spell from inside."

"But then they'll get us." The boy whimpered, gesturing at the villagers. Some of the crawlers were less than an inch away, grinning at them.

"We'll pull you through," Alanna told him. Her voice had none of Numair's calmness, but there was a brash confidence in it which the boy warmed to. He breathed in slowly and then nodded. Alanna got ready to help Jon catch the boy, while Numair and Thayet knelt as close to Daine as they could. Numair counted down from three, and when he reached one Jolyon yelped and scuffed out the line of salt with his foot.

The reaction was so rapid they were almost too late. The villagers went from aimlessly milling to vicious speed, reaching out with grasping fingers and clutching hands the instant the shield fell. Every blank face in the room snapped towards the salt circle. Jolyon screamed as icy hands closed around his ankles, and kicked out frantically until they slipped free and he was dragged into the safety of the second shield. On his other side he was dimly aware of Daine being dragged through, and of Numair clutching her in his arms and dragging her even further away from the salt circle.

Now the villagers were angry, and they tore at the circle with their emaciated fingers until every grain of salt and every scrap of earth was torn into pieces and hurled away. Even in their outrage they were still completely silent. The dull thud of ravaged earth hit their shield again and again as the six people within it caught their breath.

"What's your name?" The man who was holding Jolyon's shoulders asked him. The boy choked in a shaky breath and told him.

"Whu… what's yours?" He asked, because anything was better than the silence. The man ducked his head in a courtly bow of greeting which made Jolyon smile, because sitting here in the dirt it seemed like the most idiotic thing to do.

"I'm Jon," the man told him, "And the lady currently bruising your left shoulder is Alanna."

"Oops, sorry." The woman muttered, letting go.

"And that's Thayet." The man finished, nodding towards the black haired woman who was bending over the unconscious Daine with a worried frown on her porcelain face. Jolyon bit back a laugh and then, seeing the question on the man's face, explained:

"I'm sorry, it's just so funny, did you know you have the same names as the king and queen?" He giggled and pointed at their ordinary looking clothes and mud stained boots. "Can you imagine them sitting here?"

"It would be unusual." The man agreed with a grin. Standing up, he helped the boy to his feet and caught Thayet's shoulder. "Well, my queen, now that the excitement's over we should get Daine to Duke Baird, and our young friend here into bed." He looked more seriously down at the girl and then added in a low voice to Numair, "Obviously what we were talking about before… we won't say anything else until everything's back to normal."

"This is normal," Numair said in an oddly sarcastic voice, and then his shoulders relaxed and he picked Daine up, carrying her easily. Relief was obvious in his voice. "She's waking up. I'll take her to the healers."

Alanna, with a meaningful look at Thayet, followed Numair to the healer's wing. Jon stopped Thayet and Jolyon at the complex wall and pressed his hand to the gate. Walls of shining magic flowed up it, and he sighed.

"We'll start getting mages to reinforce that in shifts." He said. "We can't risk this happening again. Until we find out what's wrong with them, we'll just have to treat those poor people like any other dangerous animal."

"You should burn it down." The boy said, suddenly passionate. Thayet shook her head and rested her hand on the boy's shoulder.

"You're just saying that because you're scared." She told him. "If we ran away from everything that frightens us, we'd never learn how to protect ourselves from anything."

Jolyon looked down at his feet, biting his lip mulishly, and the woman felt a little bad for lecturing him, after everything he had been through that night. He was too thin, she thought, and his skin was stained with dirt and tears.

"You can sleep in our son's room tonight." She said. "He won't mind, he's staying by the coast for the summer. That way if you sleep badly we'll be nearby. I'll have to get the maid to give you a bath first, though!"

The boy whistled through his teeth and stuck his hands into his pockets. "You have your own maid?" He asked, impressed. "Those mages really do know a lot of people on the make, don't they?"

"They know a few." Jon said, hiding a laugh behind an unconvincing cough. "Thayet, when's the last time someone told you we were 'on the make'?"

She scowled at him, and Jon had to look away. After the stress of the past hour he felt the laughter rising up irresistibly in him, and before he knew it he was crying great tears of mirth. When he could finally catch his breath he saw the boy's offended expression and started again.

"Jolyon," Thayet started in a careful voice, "There's probably something you should know…"


	19. Charm

"Please, Alanna." Duke Baird's soft voice was amused, but barbed. "If I had a copper for every time one of these two carried each other in here, I would retire a wealthy man." He sniffed and added under his breath, "At least this way around I'm spared the chore of lecturing Mistress Sarrasri on lifting with her knees."

The lioness paused in her tirade and found herself staring at Daine with barely concealed amazement. "She carried _Numair_ in here?"

"He was hit by a slingshot." The healer said absently, "I believe the young lady shapeshifted to make her muscles equal to the task, but proper form is not to be sneered at. We have no way of knowing what arthritic problems may lie in store for a ecdysiast."

Alanna scowled at the long word and folded her arms. Numair had ignored her order to put Daine down the moment she was in the healer's rooms, and was holding her tightly while he cleaned blood from her face and hands. The girl was sleepily insisting that she was alright, and that he shouldn't fuss, but even the servants could tell how upset she was. Her normally tanned skin was pale and her reddened eyes were wide, scanning the corners of the room in something close to terror. When her trembling grew too bad, Numair drew her head down and kissed her temple, murmuring something which the others in the room could not hear. She quietened and clumsily reached out, and he took her icy hand and stroked her fingers gently until her eyes fluttered closed.

It would have seemed shockingly intimate, only – Alanna realised with a twinge of self-doubt – only, she had seen this before. Baird was right. Whenever one or the other of them had been hurt, the other one clung to them like glue.

She remembered Daine holding Numair's hand, distracting him from the healers pulling shards of glass from his hand. A bandit mage had thrown a crystal orb full of poisonous smoke at him. The smoke had been caught harmlessly in Numair's counterspell, but in the panic he had forgotten that the missile itself could hurt him. The broken glass had sliced into the artery in his left wrist, and he had collapsed before a soldier had discovered him lying in the mud and tied a tourniquet around his arm. Daine rushed into the healer's tent as soon as she heard, stained with mud and feathers from sending her birds out on patrol, and only caught her breath when Numair dragged his eyes open and pulled a face at her.

She grimaced at his wound and asked him a question about… what had it been? Meditating, or runes? Alanna remembered that it had been something bizarrely inappropriate. All of the other people who had gathered in the warm tent tried to interrupt her thoughtless lack of timing, but Numair smiled and started a very detailed answer, and before he was half finished the healer had drawn the last shards out of his wrist and was beginning to heal the wound closed. Daine had smiled at the sight and kissed her teacher's cheek affectionately, startling him out of his train of thought.

"I don't really care," She grinned mischievously. "If I'm as stupid as you and get hurt by a silly man throwing midwinter baubles, you can tell me the rest then."

He pulled a face and glanced at the healer, looking away quickly from the sight of his own torn skin moving back into place. His voice, still choked with pain, held a note of pompousness as he looked back at Daine. "My wealth of knowledge is wasted on you, you ungrateful child. I know about things you can't even imagine!"

"And I know how to duck." She quipped, standing up. "On balance, I think I'm better off."

He grinned and caught her hand, squeezed it, and then made a show of wincing at the filth she was covered in. "Get some sleep, magelet."

Alanna remembered the strange exchange for its humour, but until now she hadn't really unpicked it as anything else. It hadn't been the only time, and she felt a little ashamed of her outburst when they had first come into the room tonight.

"Daine," Numair was saying, his voice suddenly becoming a little too loud for the small room. "Daine, wake up."

"No, let her sleep." Baird caught the girl's limp wrist and shut his eyes, his lips moving as he counted her pulse. Numair opened his mouth to protest, thinking that Daine would need to explain what had drained her energy, and then he bit his tongue. The healer was gentle with his patients, but he had been known to throw things at people who interfered with the delicate art of healing. Alanna folded her arms and watched the man draw the girl a little tighter, seeing how carefully he rested her head against his shoulder and supported her weight so that she wouldn't move in her sleep and disturb the healer.

Alanna, watching this careful scene, was just feeling a little more friendly towards Numair when she saw him kiss the crown of Daine's head, and then her temper rose again.

"Don't do that," She snapped. "What's wrong with you? She's unconscious!"

Numair raised an eyebrow and his voice was dry. "I'm very sure that she doesn't mind."

"You're taking advantage of her." The woman retorted. "If she was awake…"

"If she was awake she would kiss me back." The man said flatly. Then, with a narrow eyed expression, he added very pointedly, "If we were alone, she would hardly be satisfied with just a kiss."

"Don't say things like that." Alanna's voice rose, and Numair matched her anger.

"Why not, Alanna? If you're so determined to shout at me, you might as well use the truth. Otherwise you'll just keep stomping around accusing me of… of what? Ever since we arrived here you've been acting as if I assaulted my best friend. 'Taking advantage of her'!" His voice took on a hurt mimicry, and he finished in a bitter, heated whisper, "Gods, do you hear yourself? You make me out to be little better than a rapist."

She flinched at the word, but didn't argue. Perhaps she couldn't find the right words, but her silence was enough to make Numair look away in hurt.

"You've heard the truth so many times that I don't know what else to tell you, Alanna. Is it so hard for you to believe that Daine gave herself to me out of love? And gods help me, but I took what she was offering. Yes, I wanted her, but I would never have touched her without her consent. I know I made a mistake, Alanna. But it's not the same mistake you're punishing me for."

The woman threw up her hands and was about to say something else when Baird opened his eyes and fixed the room in his steely glare.

"It's amazing how people think that we healers cannot hear." He said, and then his voice grew more severe. "My son is sleeping in the next room. I do not wish him to hear any of this. And, forgive me, but I do not think Mistress Sarrasri is the type of person to enjoy being argued over. She is not asleep, Lady Trebond, nor has her ordeal rendered her deaf, Master Salmalin."

Numair paled and stroked Daine's hair apologetically. "I was going to tell you all of this anyway, magelet. I'm sorry."

"Tell her about Lord Sylotol." Alanna suggested in a sarcastic voice, and then bowed her head mockingly to the healer and left. Numair shook his head and looked down at the girl, wondering if she really was awake, or if Baird was simply sick of their bickering. Her eyelashes fluttered, and he sighed. Awake, then, and he would have to explain the wretched mess behind Alanna's comment far sooner than he had hoped.

Baird straightened up and walked to the fire, throwing an extra log onto the blaze. He kept his apartments warm, knowing how keenly sick people felt the cold, but as his thin frame was illuminated by the blaze Numair wondered if the healer himself was a little frail. He must be giving up so much of himself to keep his position as the court healer – not just his gift, but his time and his sleep, and his rapidly failing patience.

"What's your son's name?" He asked, feeling guilty for speaking over the man's head with Alanna. The healer looked at him in some surprise, and then smiled crookedly.

"Nealan."

"And you keep him here? Wouldn't he be safer…?"

"Ah, but he's so determined to join the pages here that he came racing back from Queenscove the second the castle was deemed safe from the immortals. I've told him that he has to spend the summer working with me before he finally decides. If he sees what damage those weapons can do, perhaps he won't be so keen to swing them around." His smile became a little wan. "I know it won't work. He's like your friend." He nodded absently at Daine. "At that age, they're very fixed on their own mind."

"I don't think age is a requisite for stubbornness." Numair replied, thinking of Alanna. The healer shrugged and smiled gently, taking a small clay jar down from a shelf that was neatly stacked with books.

His room was every part as organised and meticulous as Numair's was chaotically messy. Scholars would have leapt at the chance to see the rooms. Undoubtedly, they would compare the two famed mages' personalities with the intricacies of their gift, but the truth was much more mundane. Baird had more visitors, and he needed to keep things as clean as possible. Numair treated his rooms like a sanctuary, and only let people he trusted through the doors. He told people that it was because his experiments were highly volatile; the servants had quipped that the only explosive substance was the man's temper when they disturbed his reading.

Duke Baird's jar was small and unremarkable, but when the man dipped his finger in it the oil which he drew out shimmered with wondrous gold and bronze colours which seemed to defy the firelight for brightness. Whispering a few words under his breath, he drew a rune which Numair didn't recognise onto Daine's forehead, and others on her throat, wrists and (murmuring a polite apology as he raised her shift) her stomach. When he finished the last one he placed one thumb gently onto each of her closed eyelids and recited a meaningless string of words which seemed to go on for hours. Finally, he pressed his right hand to her heart and his left hand to his own forehead and commanded, "Wake up."

Daine stirred and then, electrified, sat bolt upright and stared wildly around. Her eyes fixed on Baird, and she gasped in a shallow breath.

"You are a very silly girl." The healer said in a reproving voice. Daine drew back and then shook her head, looking embarrassed.

"I'm sorry. I didn't have time to meditate or do it properly, and I guess I… missed."

"Oh no, you didn't." He shook his head. "You just severed your gift with the surgical skill of those lumbering bears you're so fond of."

Daine laughed and leaned back, smiling sheepishly at Numair and explaining. "The sound came back. You were right, I could hear it with my magic. Only it was so loud and painful that I couldn't bear it. I tried to turn off my magic but instead I…"

"You ripped it out of your core by the roots." Baird tutted and wiped the oil from his fingers. "Well, I've reattached it, but you'll be weak as a kitten until you've replaced all the energy that just poured out of that wound. Honestly." He glanced at Numair and pulled a face. "I see you taught the poor girl your subtlety. I've seen neater magecraft from a five year old."

"I was desperate." Daine retorted, her soft voice a little stern. "You're not scolding me for one mistake when you've spent the last year askin' me all those fascinated questions about how I heal the animals. I'm not too tired to roll my eyes at you."

Duke Baird grinned suddenly, the expression lighting up his tired face. Numair was amazed to see the difference in him. For all the times that they had come to the healer, they had never seemed to really make friends. The man had a habit of scolding anyone who needed healing as if they had gotten hurt just to be spiteful. He had never treated Daine any differently, or so Numair had thought.

Last year had been when she had caught fever from the unicorns, he remembered. For a few days while she struggled through the worst of the fever, the junior healers had brought her into these rooms so that the duke could watch over her. At the time, Onua and Alanna had been a little dubious about the idea, knowing that the head healer was taking the chance to study a disease which humans had not contracted in many years, since the last time immortals had roamed the mortal realm.

Daine had been babbling so much feverish nonsense that their concern eclipsed their suspicion, but they need not have worried. Although the man would have freely admitted that he was curious about the fever, his interest was that of a healer who wanted the best for his patients. The spiking fever and chills seemed to act like any other illness, and when it broke Daine was more than happy to talk. She asked if he was researching possible treatments, in case anyone else caught it.

"Who else runs around with unicorns?" The man had asked her, with the first smile she had ever seen on his normally austere face. Daine grinned back weakly and gave him the obvious answer, which he rolled his eyes at. Folklore was all very well, he informed her, but he doubted that only young virgin maidens would be susceptible to a mortal virus.

"It could be an immortal virus," She argued, with a spark of surprising intelligence. The man looked around with amazement, just in time to hand her a handkerchief as she launched into an impressive sneezing fit.

For the next few days they discussed illnesses with fascinated excitement, from human to animal to immortal, until Daine could no longer make the excuse that she was too weak to sit around chatting all day. With reluctance she left the healer's rooms, but after that she called in on him whenever they were in the same residence, asking for his guidance with her own healing and giving him a peculiar insight into a kind of healing that even the highest robe healers never really considered.

"The waking spell I cast on you won't last forever." Duke Baird told Daine. He looked around to make eye contact with Numair. "If there's anything you need to know, then you should ask her now. She won't wake up for at least two days. From what I've heard, your villagers need help as soon as possible."

"I don't know much," Daine said, shaking her head. "Just what happened, and I've told you most of that."

"What was the noise like?" Numair asked, tugging at his nose as he thought of questions. "Was it a voice? Were there words?"

"No, nothing like that." She frowned, remembering. "It was so loud that I couldn't hear anything of it, I just knew that it was loud and shrill and deep and harsh, like… like an explosion, I guess, only it went on for ages. And then it stopped so suddenly and the silence happened, and that was worse. It took away my hearing and I couldn't even hear my own breathing, and it smothered my magic until everything went white and hollow." She shook her head again, shivering. "I don't know how to explain it. No words, no incantations, and not like an animal or a person screaming or roaring. Just noise and silence."

"What did you do?" Duke Baird asked. "I'm sure crippling your magic wasn't your first response."

Daine held up her hands, showing him the torn and dirty nails. "I didn't think about why, but I was clutching at the dirt. I think the villagers do that, too. Their hands are in shreds."

"That's not a defensive instinct," The healer mused, looking absently at his own hands and then frowning at the girl's. "Normally people curl up and wrap their hands around themselves, especially with magical attacks. Or if you do hold out your hands then you hold them in front of you." He demonstrated, raising his thin fingers into a pantomime of horror. "You try to stop the attack. Of course, we end up healing so many lopped off fingers and punctured palms…" he trailed off, caught sight of Daine's expression, and his lips thinned in something close to a smile. "I only see the endgame of your heroic battles, young lady. Forgive me for being a little cynical."

"So why dig into the dirt?" Numair asked, but it was clear that none of them knew the answer. After a few moments Duke Baird stood up and fetched some water and a rag so Daine could clean her hands. She moved clumsily and fumbled the cloth into the water, prompting the healer to take it back and clean her hands himself. He worked with officious haste, scrubbing so hard that her skin stung. The girl muttered an apology, wishing she had concentrated on the cloth a little better to avoid this punishment. Her mind was growing a little too foggy for her to really object.

"Your clothes are filthy, too." Baird told her, looking disapproving. "Master Salmalin, Mistress Sarrasri will be asleep soon. Perhaps you could fetch her something which won't start to moulder before she wakes up." Seeing the question on the other man's lips, he shook his head and patted his hand in a way that he had practiced with hundreds of worried relatives. "I need to keep an eye on her tonight, after that you can take her home. I'm sure she'd rather be in her own bed."

"Did you have any more questions?" Daine asked, looking anxious for a moment. The thought of missing two whole days was more than a little daunting. Numair smiled and shook his head, kissing her forehead before he left.

"This is broken." Duke Baird said.

Daine looked up at him, bewildered, and as soon as the door closed behind Numair the healer reached out and snapped the cheap pewter pregnancy charm from her neck with deft fingers. Daine whitened and looked at the broken shards in her lap, but before she could truly panic the healer shook his head. "Don't pull that face, girl. You're not pregnant."

"Good, then I can enjoy this panic attack in peace!" She gasped, shaking her head. "How can it be broken? Did we… did we wear it out?"

"You'd be dead from exhaustion." He told her humourlessly, and started rooting around on another shelf. "The rune has been badly scratched out, and there's no power in it. I would conclude that it never worked in the first place."

"That swine!" Daine cursed, thinking of the sour old healer who had sold her the charm. "He must have done this on purpose!"

"It's possible," The man said mildly. "You placed a lot of trust in a complete stranger, didn't you? Why didn't you come to me?"

The girl looked abashed. "Well I… I thought you might…"

"What? Scold you like our illustrious Lioness?" Baird smiled thinly at his own joke and shook his head. "Even if I had, I feel that this accident demonstrates that there are worse eventualities."

"I don't know how to talk about things like this." Daine muttered. Baird shrugged, and made his voice a little more clinical.

"If you can't talk about something, then people will say you shouldn't be doing it."

"People like you?" She challenged, and smiled at the expression on his face. "No, not you. I reckon you're used to pulling that disapproving face, but your eyes are smiling."

"My eyes are merely lined and weary. You're keeping an old man up past his bedtime with your foolish excuses." He looked sidelong at her and added in a less heated voice, "You don't need to be defensive around me. If decades of healing have taught me anything, it's that everyone is human. Human beings are like all animals. They need to eat, sleep, breathe, lie in the warm sunlight and love each other. I'm not going to take sides in an argument where all the rules are made up by people to hide the fact that we are all animals, underneath."

"Fine," She said, smiling and shaking her head in some wonder at his peculiar outburst. "I guess then I meant to say… that I would have come to you, only it wasn't needful the last time I was nearby. Everything happened miles away, and you know that healers are in short supply in the villages right now. Thinking about it, if that mage was any good at his work he'd be helping out the wounded, not sulking in his rotten old hovel cheating people with fake spells."

"Admirable logic. It is only a shame that you didn't apply it at the time." Baird shook his head, and this time he did smile. "I do understand, Miss Sarrasri. Sometimes it takes a while for our thoughts to clear. I imagine you were rather distracted."

"Yes," Daine replied rather more fervently than she had planned. The emphasis of her word was spoiled by a large yawn, which made her entire body suddenly stretch and long for the softness of her bed. The duke took her wrist for a moment and counted her pulse.

"The waking spell has worn off." He told her, although Daine could have told him it was fair obvious if only her weary mind could find the words. She murmured something idiotic and her head lolled back against the chair in an angle that would have been awkward, except that every limb felt as if it had turned into soft, carded wool.

Baird took his hand away and she felt something cool and hard left behind in her hand. Moving with supreme effort, she drew her palm around to her lap and blinked dumbly down at the beautiful silver charm.

"You'll have to repay me when you wake up." The man said in his usual light voice. Daine made an enquiring noise, and felt a hand lightly patting her shoulder. "You owe me an hour of your attention, nothing more. It would be remiss of me to set you lose with that charm without making you suffer through the mortification of _the talk."_

She made an incredulous sound and managed to form a few words: mama and midwife, words with babyish mewling syllables. The healer understood, being far too accustomed to interpreting words from gibbering wrecks.

"So what if she was? If I had told you that you were pregnant, what would you, Daine, have done?" He asked. Daine made a strange noise, and looked away by burrowing her nose deeper into the cushion.

"Exactly." The man said, drawing a blanket over her shoulders. Daine's eyes moved under her eyelids, and for a moment she drew on some hidden strength and forced her heavy lids open to stare at him.

"Numair!" She gasped, suddenly clutching at the healer's hands. "Ask him if he remembers… the… the… the river…" and then her eyes closed, and her hands fell back heavily into her lap. Duke Baird rubbed at his wrists thoughtfully, and retucked the blanket around the girl securely enough that if she did suffer another outburst of irritating memory, she would at least stay warm.

Numair returned a few minutes later, with Daine's travelling satchel under one arm. He shut the door softly behind him and nodded a greeting to the other man, who smiled back and pointed out that they could sing and shout as loudly as they wanted without waking the wildmage up.

"She asked me to tell you something," the healer began, and repeated back Daine's odd message with absolute accuracy. He finished with a raised eyebrow, "Does it make any sense to you? She may have simply been dreaming."

"I don't know." Numair scratched his eyebrow, frowning. "I don't think so. I can't really make sense of anything tonight."

"She'll be fine." The other man said smoothly, already unpacking the girl's clothes. "Get some sleep, and by the time you wake up she'll be ready to go home. I just need to make sure that her gift doesn't bleed into her core tonight; she must have been truly panicking to be so rough with her own magic."

"Yes." Numair glanced at the sleeping girl and, in lieu of taking a step towards her, forced himself to merely curl his nails into the palms of his hands. "I need to find out what did it."

"Tomorrow." Duke Baird caught the mage's elbow and walked him to the door, firmly pushing him through. "Tonight, you need sleep."

"But…"

"You can't think properly without sleep. You said so yourself."

"I was being trite."

"Don't make me cast a sleeping spell on you, Black Robe. You're in my domain, now, and I'm not too worried about whether you fall onto soft ground or hard stone."

Numair threw his hands up in surrender and stalked off.

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	20. Gossip

Jolyon was woken up by a polite tap on the door. The sound was utterly alien to him; politeness was about as peculiar as the sound of a door which wasn't saturated with mould and dove droppings. Because of this, he stuffed his face back into the soft pillow and fell back asleep.

The knock, feeling the sting of rejection, decided to move from polite enquiry to a petulant thud.

This was more familiar. The boy groaned and threw something in the direction of the sound. It didn't squawk or coo angrily as it thudded to the floor. No scaly claws dug into his bare arms and nothing pecked his cheek. In fact, the whole world seemed to have been transformed from harsh, cold reality into a softened fantasy. Jolyon decided he must still be dreaming. He couldn't even smell animal shit, for the Hag's sake! What kind of idiot would wake up from a dream this good?

"Lemme… ha… toast…" he dribbled into the pillow, and smiled smugly when the rich smell of golden bread drifted past his nostrils. This was the best dream he had ever had!

"Master Jolyon!" A strident voice rang out so close to his ears that Jolyon yelped. He sat bolt upright and hit his head on the edge of a tray which the monstrous voice had been holding near to his head. He heard a smothered laugh, and then felt a pudgy hand gripping his face. Perhaps the speaker meant it to be a soothing gesture, but he couldn't help feeling like he was being manhandled by a lump of evil bread dough. He felt his face being turned left and right, and then the hand fell away. He scowled and wiped the creature's sweat from his chin as it said, "Well, no damage done."

"Who you?" Jolyon demanded, abandoning grammar with furious pique. The creature tutted and put the tray down, then moved away to open the curtains.

"I'm Bryce." The curtains let in a burst of dim light; the sun had barely risen. "His majesty asked me to ensure you were prepared for the day ahead. Since your classes begin at noon, we haven't much time."

"Noon?" The boy gaped at the pudgy man, who was so short he barely blocked out the dawn light. He didn't need to say another word, he decided. Any man who thought it would take six hours to get dressed was clearly an idiot. He seized his pillow and buried himself under it.

He wasn't quite sure how he would fall back asleep in this position. In his determination to hide from Bryce he had smothered himself. Jolyon realised that sooner or later he would have to surface for air. He waited for as long as he could, praying that the strange man had left, but when he finally reared up and gasped in a breath of sweet oxygen the servant was still there. His soft hands were folded in front of him, and he was nudging something with his toe. It was the pile of clothes which the boy had dropped there the night before. Bryce prodded at them as if he was expecting them to burst into noxious flames.

"You must eat your breakfast," he said mildly, not looking up. "We have to go to the baths, and the barber's, and the tailors…" his voice tailed off and he waved a hand idly. "The maids will wish to clean this room most thoroughly once you have vacated it. Please make haste."

The boy opened his mouth to argue, and then he thought about the day ahead and a thrill of excitement ran through him. The man had mentioned classes! So today must be when he was supposed to start his lessons. The rest of the plan seemed a little daunting, especially the part about the baths, but after so long being alone, or on the road and frightened, the thought of spending time with other children was irresistible.

He made his voice as pompous as Bryce's soft murmur, and lifted his chin. "I have a pet bat. Please go and catch me ten large flies for her breakfast. Of equal size, naturally."

The servant hid a smirk. "Use the ones that are buzzing around your head… young master." He bowed, and left the room.

Jolyon emerged from his room a few minutes later. His grinned when he saw Bryce wince at the way he was wiping jam from the side of his mouth onto the cuffs of his shirt. Still, he was careful not to touch anything with his sticky hands. Now that he could see it in daylight, he could tell that the rooms he was in were full of the most beautiful things he had ever seen. Rich, dark wood and plush velvet cushions nestled together on long, low couches; the table legs were carved with hundreds of dancing figures and even the grate in the fireplace was made of intricately tooled iron.

Still, Jolyon thought, he wouldn't have thought that a king and queen lived here. The sofa held a few tatty old cushions and a well-loved looking stuffed toy. The shelves boasted a few tacky looking ornaments obviously bought from market traders, with their bright lead paint already flaking off onto the polished surface. Worst of all, one of the embroideries on the panelled wall was formed of cross stitches so wonky that the sewn on words looked drunk.

"Ham sweet ham." Jolyon spelled out, guessing away some of the annoying swirls at the ends of the words. Hearing Bryce snort, he turned and stuck his hands in his pockets. "Where are they hiding, then?"

"Their majesties rose early." The servant said smoothly. "Her majesty is training the Riders, and his majesty is in the privy council."

"Speaking of the privy…" The boy leaned closer, enjoying Bryce's irritated look at this apparent idiocy.

"You can go when we get to the baths." The man snapped, and caught Joly's elbow. He regretted this decision immediately and let go, wiping his hand onto his leggings hastily.

The baths were as horrible as Jolyon had feared. No sooner had he stepped through the door than a burly woman was seizing his clothes, dropping them into a hole in the tiled floor with an expression that told the boy how unlikely it was that he would ever see his old rags again. Holding her nose with a horrified expression in her green eyes, the woman wrapped him in a towel and frogmarched him into a smaller room where a bored looking woman approached him with a solid lump of something blue and a meaningful expression. Jolyon had seen soap before; it was yellow and white and smelled of hog fat. It was not supposed to smell like flowers. He opened his mouth to say something, and the woman shoved a bundle of leaves between his teeth.

"Chew." She said, and dropped the soap into the bucket. Jolyon bit down and tasted the sharp shock of mint when he felt her fingers dragging at the towel. He stepped back with a horrified yelp and glared at her, nearly choking on the mint leaves.

"It's warm water. Don't be a baby." The woman scolded him, and this time when she took the towel away he didn't dare to object. He felt mortified as she scrubbed him up and down with the soap, even though he knew that she was completely indifferent to his embarrassment. Even the old ladies in the village had never bothered to do this. They had given him a scrap of laundry fat and sent him to the horse trough. He couldn't remember the last time he had been fully naked, nor the last time another person had seen him without his clothes on.

The woman cursed under her breath and fetched another bucket of water, washing him a second time and a third before she was satisfied that he was clean. She made him spit out the chewed leaves into the dirty water and then gave him a glass of fresh water to rinse his mouth. When he did she looked at his teeth, sighed, and shoved another handful of the bitter leaves into his mouth.

Jolyon stared at his feet, which looked strangely soft and unformed without their coating of grime. His skin tingled pleasantly as it dried, and his damp hair stuck to his cheeks. The woman had left him alone for a few moments, and he thought about recovering the towel, but when he found it he felt ashamed. It was covered in grime, grey and dusty brown and green. How had he not seen it, before? It was so obvious, now. He backed away from it and sat down on the wooden bench in the corner, biting back a feeling of shame.

He knew he couldn't help the way that he had been, back home. He knew that there was nothing he could have done. Even the small pieces of soap the old women gave him were precious. It was pointless to feel ashamed, but at the same time he hated himself. He hated seeing himself through other people's eyes, as stained and disgusting as that filthy towel, good for nothing except hiding away and wincing at. And that was what people had done, wasn't it? He had seen them, drawing their own children away and warning them not to play with the grubby young boy. He had seen them shaking their heads, warning their sons that if they weren't well behaved the Trickster would make them switch places with the bird boy.

He had laughed about it, letting his voice carry across the town square and his chuckles echo into the narrow, twisting alleys. Maybe after a few years he had convinced himself that he didn't care, and that was when he stopped noticing. Perhaps he had even believed that they were lying, or he had given himself airs because he was the hero of their stories, while other boys were nothing.

But now, sitting in a steam filled room with a filthy towel, Jolyon knew that they had despised him.

Pity, mockery, disgust… they were all the same thing, really. The marks of people who thought they were good, and who ignored anything which might taint them.

 _I want you to act like you barely know us,_ Daine had said, and he had swallowed back the nausea which, just a few hours ago, he hadn't understood. He had been upset, hurt, even. But he didn't know why her simple request had cut him so deeply until now. _You followed us here, and we let you tag along._

He was crying by the time the barber arrived. The man cut his hair in silence, combed out the lice from the short locks, and gave his shoulder a comforting squeeze before he left. Jolyon wiped his nose on the back of his hand and shuddered at the disgusting proof of his disgusting self. He washed his hand with the rest of the glass of water and chewed on his mint leaves until his teeth ached.

He was unusually on the walk to the tailor's, and didn't bother to rise to Bryce's barbed comments. His few retorts were short, sharp, and he wanted them to hurt the man rather than irritate him. The servant fell quiet while the tailor measured the boy from head to foot, and after he had written down scores of numbers Bryce rose to his feet. His head just came up to the tailor's chin.

"Master Jolyon needs something for this afternoon." He said, his voice quiet and polite. "He is going to begin his tuition with the pages at noon."

"Is that so?" The tailor put his tape measure around his neck and looked Jolyon up and down. His voice held something of a sneer. "You're telling me that he has nothing? Who is he?"

"He is a ward of his majesty the king." Bryce's voice grew a little severe, and the boy looked up in amazement as the servant began to lie in exactly the same pompous voice. "His ancestral home was destroyed by mage fire and he walked all the way here in his night shirt to petition the king for help."

"Really? Well, I heard a different story. I heard that the only new whelp arrived with Master Salmalin." The tailor raised an eyebrow, clearly fishing for gossip. "His by-blow, some are saying. Although if you ask me he doesn't look a bit like him. Not that it proves much either way…" Jolyon was treated to another appraising look, and he felt his temper rise from the pits of his misery.

"I met Master Salmalin and Mistress Sarrasri on the road." He snapped, making his voice as arrogant as he dared. "My father – my real father – fought and died in the war to protect people like you, sir. I'm sure that took a lot more courage than measuring ladies' frilly underthings!"

The tailor choked and stood bolt upright, his face burning with sudden shame. He hadn't expected the shy, quiet young boy to speak, let alone to create such an uproar! "My apologies, young master. I'm sure I have some clothes you can take now."

After they left, Jolyon wondered if the tailor had given him the badly fitting clothes on purpose. They bulged out at the shoulders and arms far more than he was used to, and the puckered fabric made him look like he was slouching. He tugged it down tight and rammed the extra folds into his belt.

"It's a pages uniform, so they cut them to fit growing muscles." Bryce told him, stopping mid-corridor to pull the fabric straight. "I have some pins in my room, Master Jolyon. They will suffice for today."

"Thank you for lying for me." The boy blurted out. He reddened and looked away, fiddling with a stray thread from one of the newly hemmed cuffs. "It was nice of you."

"I don't know the truth, either." The servant shrugged, his meaty shoulders rolling back like wheels of cheese. It was a peculiar sight, and it made Jolyon giggle. Seeing his smile, Bryce patted his arm and leaned forward confidentially. "You're not really Master Salmalin's son, are you?"

"Gods, no!" Jolyon scoffed loudly at the thought. "I'd be ten feet tall!"

"That's what I thought." Bryce shook his head and started walking again. His voice grew a little more pointed. "Then it must have been something else which has been distracting the poor man."

"Whuh… what do you mean?" Jolyon asked, a little clumsily. The servant grinned brightly and waved a hand.

"Oh nothing, nothing. It's just that I'm friends with a man who's friends with one of his maids, a lovely lady called Leigh. She said that for a few months he's been far more irritable than usual. She's been worried about him, poor dear, and so naturally we're all trying to find out what's wrong so Leigh can help him. But he's infernally secretive!

"He used to sit and write letters, pages and pages of them, and then burn them in the fire. He would sit there for hours, watching them burn with his head in his hands. Leigh said she caught him doing that night after night. One night she was clearing his dinner plates away and she heard a horrible noise – an explosion! He had crumpled up so many notes the fire was ablaze, and then in a fit of frustration he had thrown his pen into the fire. He was so upset that he must have forgotten it was magicked, one of those ones that doesn't need dipping into an ink well… when it hit the flames the runes just exploded. It took her weeks to scrub the ink stains from the ceiling after that one. Now, why would he write all those letters, and why wouldn't he want his maid to see what he was writing?

"Then, the very instant the war ends and the roads are safer, he disappears for a few weeks and returns with a young lad in tow. Who are you? You're not his student, like Mistress Sarrasri, and you're not a servant, are you? You obviously haven't had the training." The man sniffed a little complacently and finished with a meaningful look. "Lots of young women died in the war. I expect a few of them left sons behind."

"You're gossiping." The boy sounded disappointed, and the brightness in his voice faded away. "I told you the truth, and you're gossiping."

"I do believe you." The servant looked disappointed. "I just don't fancy the chore of convincing anyone else the truth. Is your father really dead?"

"I don't know." Jolyon looked down, wriggling his feet in the uncomfortable new shoes. "I said that to make him feel small. It could be true, I guess. Master Salmalin thinks it's true. It's why he brought me here, to train me so I can make do without my family."

"Then maybe he'll turn up." The servant said, smiling happily. Jolyon wondered if he was pleased at the idea of the reunion, or at the thought of his gossip becoming a little more believable. It reminded him of the old women, the stories that they made up about him to beg passing noblemen for alms. He remembered the mothers in the village dragging their children away and scolding them with threats about the bird boy. Every word of his life was a story, and every word of it was used like a weapon against someone else.

 _I want you to act like you barely know us._ Daine had said. He had felt her words like an ice pick planted into his heart.

"Don't tell them the truth." He said fiercely, digging his hands into Bryce's wrist and holding him tightly. "Don't say a single word. I'll agree with every single word of any other story you ask me. Let's let them gossip. Let them think whatever they like."


	21. Whatever Possessed

A/N: A short chapter today, because tomorrow's is quite long! Thank you all so much for your reviews and comments, I love hearing from you. Sorry that there's not been much fluff for a few chapters, but don't worry. I'm sure certain characters are getting just as frustrated as you are…! – Sivvus

888

The lesson wasn't like anything Jolyon had imagined, but then, he had very little idea what he had been expecting in the first place. The lessons which Master Salmalin had given him had felt easy. Oh, it wasn't that the man didn't challenge him. Learning which curving lines sounded like which letter made the boy's head spin. But the mage would sit down beside him while the water was boiling, or the fire beginning to catch, and for half an hour his full attention would be on the boy. He answered every question, and seemed to know simple solutions for every perplexing problem which Jolyon struggled with. In the few days it had taken them to walk to Corus, Jolyon had learned the alphabet and was beginning to sound out simple words, like the crooked sampler in the royal suite.

He knew that the classes at the castle couldn't be like that. If there were lots of children, then of course the teacher wouldn't be able to single him out. But when he walked into the room he felt his mouth hanging open.

First, there was furniture in the room. Not the rough benches of the village houses, but shapely tables and wooden stools which didn't need straw to be tucked under that one wobbly leg. Each stool held a student, but every student was different. Some wore fabric that shone, or shimmered. Some had delicate embroidery on their cuffs and collars. One had fur lining his boots, even in the summer, although the soft downy fabric looked like it was designed for comfort, not warmth. They had swords slung to their hips with identical wooden handles, and their hair was neat and worryingly clean.

They were all boys, too. Jolyon had expected a few girls – after all, hadn't Daine said that she had learned here? – but every curious face that looked up at him was undoubtedly male. He had never been in a room with just boys before. He couldn't help feeling as if he was supposed to act a certain way, but he didn't have the faintest idea how to start.

Well, they all seemed to be sitting down. That was a good start. He made his way to the nearest free stool and drew it out from under the table. It grated noisily against the stone floor.

"Don't sit there!" A boy snapped, his voice reedy and authoritative. "That's Arrow's seat!"

"I'm sorry." Jolyon bleated, and stepped back. He looked around the room for this strangely named boy. "Is he here today?"

"He's dead." A different boy said. There was an odd accusing note in his voice. "A hurrock caught him across the head. Broke his neck."

"I'm sorry." The boy said again, looking down at his toes. Cloth shoes covered them. Even his own clothes were conspiring to make him feel uncomfortable. The first boy, with the reedy voice, stood up and leaned closer. He was shorter than Jolyon, but his sharp blue eyes made him seem far more imposing and as he leaned closer the reek of cloves on his breath made the boy take a step back.

"What right do you have to swan in here and take Arrow's place?" He demanded, planting his hands on his hips. Jolyon swallowed, and reminded himself that although the boy was wearing a sword, it was only made of wood. Still, he thought, it would probably hurt to be hit with it.

"Where do you want me to sit?" He asked, being as blunt as he dared. The boy smiled thinly and pointed to the back of the room, far away from the cool breeze from the open windows. Jolyon made his way to the distant chair with some relief, feeling better when he realised that no-one would be able to see him struggle with his lessons here. A few of the boys looked around at him and then ducked their heads together, whispering. Jolyon wondered which of the rumours they had heard.

The reedy blue-eyed boy planted his feet onto Arrow's chair and smiled smugly at him.

By the time the evening bell rang, the whispers had become unbearable. He had tried to concentrate on the simple reading task which the bored looking clerk had given him, but every time he ducked his head down or picked up his pencil, a wad of paper would strike his head or a feather, borne by the gift, would tickle his neck. He ignored most of it, but a sick feeling started in his stomach and refused to fade away.

They were waiting for him when he left the room, although Jolyon lingered for as long as he dared. The clerk gave him an encouraging, if vague, smile as he left. The boy tried to read over his exercise again, but the light was beginning to dim, and the letters danced in front of his tired eyes. When he finally pushed the door open he heard the sound of running footsteps, and before he had gone two corridors the lookout boy had fetched all of the others.

"Where are you going?" The reedy boy demanded, stopping him in his tracks. "Don't you want to play with us?"

"I don't play." The boy couldn't quite hide the disgust in his voice at the idea. Infants played. Toddlers, and little girls with dolls, played. He worked for his bread! But the boys seemed to be quite serious.

As they led him through the castle Jolyon wondered if he had misjudged them. Apart from the arrogant reedy boy, they seemed to be quite friendly. They asked him his name, and how old he was, and what he was training to be. They told him (with some pride) that they were all hoping to be accepted as pages in the coming year, and that some of them were already in the first year of their training. The older ones whose wooden swords held a slight edge unsheathed them and showed them to the other boys, who showed suitable admiration.

"I'm not here to be a page," Jolyon admitted, feeling that his own life suddenly seemed a lot less glamorous. He would have loved to have one of those practice swords, even a blunt one. He wondered if the boys would let him swing one around if they made friends with him. He had to tell them the truth. "I'm here to learn more about being a courier. I'm a… that is, Mistress Sarrasri said I was good with the doves and the pigeons, so she and Master Numair brought me back here to learn how to read better and… and how to work in the palace dovecote."

"That's an important job." The reedy boy said in a surprisingly sincere voice. "My father says that a lost message can win or lose a battle. He says that there are only two people in life that you should trust: your courier and your wife!" The boys grinned, and then laughed aloud when the boy added, "He says he's not too sure about the wife."

"But tell us," One of the other children cut in with sudden determination, "Are you really here with the wildmage and the Black Mage?"

"Not with them, really." Jolyon frowned, trying to explain his way around whichever story this boy's parents had already told them. "I'm from the village near where they live. When they were recalled to the city they offered to bring me with them in exchange for helping along the road."

"Oh, like a servant?" The reedy boy recovered some of his sneer. Jolyon bristled.

"No! They wanted me to help with all kinds of important stuff. With… with the immortals, and their magic, and the people who…" he gulped and bit his tongue, remembering that the king had made him swear to keep the news about the villagers as quiet as possible. It was too late; the boys pounced on it and heckled him with so many questions that in the end the whole story came pouring out. They made impressed noises and gasps at all the right moments, and Jolyon soon found himself enjoying the story. It wasn't until he felt the hair standing up on the back of his neck that he realised that they had walked so far that they had left the castle grounds. The barns were a few hundred meters away.

"We should go inside." He said uncertainly. "It's cold out here."

"You can wear my coat." One of the boys said magnanimously, throwing it over Jolyon's shoulders. The velvet and fur was soft against his bare arms, but the boy still found himself shivering. He wasn't afraid, he told himself, and yet with every step closer he felt even colder. He found himself dragging his heels.

"Oh, come on!" The reedy boy grabbed at his arm and ferried him along. "We just want a look! How do we know you've not been lying to us, dove boy?"

"They kill people!" He objected, but it was too late to say much more. They had made their way to the entrance, and the boys were all craning their necks to see through the shimmering wall of magic into the compound. The rolling fire made the images behind it warp and twist, and it was really impossible to see anything. Jolyon sighed with relief, thinking that they would just give up and go home.

"This is stupid." One child declared, and suddenly they were all echoing it, turning to Jolyon and glaring at him. The boy suddenly felt very alone, in the dark surrounded by these children. He knew then that they had wanted this all along. They knew that he was linked to whatever secret had happened here, and they had waited for him outside of the classroom so that they could coax him into revealing it to their curious eyes.

"You said they let you do their magic." The reedy boy grabbed at the collar of Jolyon's shirt and pulled him down. "You know how to get through this barrier, don't you?"

"No," The boy croaked, but they could see that he was lying. He tried to drag himself away, but the boy held on fast, and his blue eyes held nothing except venom. In that moment, Jolyon hated the boy as much as he had hated Daine, when she had cast him aside.

"Tell us how to get through." The boy hissed, "Or your life won't be worth the three coppers your father paid your whore mother."

Jolyon glared at him, and decided that he hated this child enough to tell him the truth. "It keeps bad things out. It won't do anything to stop people with good intentions. Just convince it you want to pass through the barrier to do something good." He laughed then, hoarse with lack of breath as his collar tightened around his windpipe. "I bet you can't do it."

The boy let go with an arch look on his face and turned to the barrier. He squared his shoulders, screwed up his eyes, and sank into deep concentration. Then, smoothing his face into the angelic innocence of a child, he stepped forward and passed through the barrier.

One by one, the other boys followed him.

Jolyon stood outside and waited for the screams.


	22. Whomever Possessed

The door slammed. The noise jolted Daine awake so violently that her head spun, and she pressed her hand to her aching forehead with a muffled groan. She could hear Numair pacing across the room, back and forth, but it took her a few moments to free herself from the tangle of blankets which he had conscientiously half-smothered her in to keep her warm. When she finally broke the surface Numair's footfalls stopped, and he snapped with a half guilty, half furious voice, "You're not supposed to be awake yet."

"Gods, let me beg your sweet pardon!" She burst out, and then had to hide a yawn. "You scolding me will do plenty to help me ignore all that noise you're making. Now you've snapped at me I can go right back to sleep."

"I didn't snap at you." He snapped, and resumed his pacing. After a tense pause he added in a more mollified voice, "I'm sorry for snapping at you."

"Come here," Daine managed to push herself up against the pillows, and when she forced her weary eyes back open she scowled at Numair's obstinate expression. "I can't keep up with your pacing, it's making me even more dizzy than I already am. Come here and talk to me."

"I don't want to talk about it." The man said, his teeth gritted. Daine sighed and scratched her nose.

"If you don't tell me, I swear I won't get back to sleep, and when Duke Baird comes to check on me he'll shout at you."

"I'm not scared of that man." Numair retorted, directing his peculiar fury towards yet another irritating target. Still, he moved closer, and Daine gave him a small smile when he sat down. In a way she felt a little guilty at how easy her friend was to manipulate. He already felt guilty for waking her up, and now she was threatening to delay the natural healing her body still clearly needed, simply because he was being too stubborn to sit still. It made his pacing seem petty and childish, even though Daine knew it wasn't. A man whose temper could level cities to the ground needed some outlet when things made him irate, and the carpets were easy enough to replace after he wore lines into each one.

"I'm sorry," He said again, after he sat down. "You've only been asleep for a day. I shouldn't have woken you up."

Daine looked out of the window, surprised to see that it was still dark. The odd light of dawn was just beginning to break through the gaps in the shutters. She shrugged and leaned her head back, letting the pillows take away some of the dizzy ache.

"I haven't seen you this upset since… since…" She couldn't bring herself to say Ozorne's name, not when he was already angry. The word was like a bitter liquor which made the embers of Numair's temper blaze into brutal flame. Even now, when he was dead, they didn't really talk about the man. She couldn't imagine what else might have caused him to be so angry.

"The villagers killed someone. A boy." Numair told her in a strange, flat voice. Daine gasped and covered her face with her hands.

"They escaped?"

"No." He shook his head, and Daine saw the dark anger rising in his eyes. "The boy broke in. They tricked the barrier."

"They?" She couldn't bear to think about it. "How many…?"

"I don't know." Numair swallowed and looked down at his shaking hands. "Nine? Ten? They were boys from the school, daring each other to find out what we were hiding in the barns. Just children, Daine. They broke through the barrier and walked right into the villagers' open arms."

"Dear Mother..." Daine groaned, seeing the pictures in her mind as clearly as if she had been there, smelling the fetid stench of decay from the bodies of the guards they had left behind, hearing nothing except the frightened breathing of the small boys as they slowly realised their mistake… they would have huddled together, thinking that they would be safer in a group, but it would have only made it easier for the villagers to surround them in the dark. Only one had died, Numair had said, but he hadn't said a word about the others. Daine knew they would not have escaped unscathed. She wondered how they had escaped at all.

"The barrier alerted me to someone crossing it," Numair supplied, seeing the question in her eyes. "I got there just in time to…" He waved a hand numbly and shook his head so violently that it must have hurt. "No, I wasn't just in time. I was too late. By the time I dragged them out I was far too late."

It was horrifying. Utterly heart breaking. Daine found herself staring at Numair in those few moments, not knowing how to respond. He would have felt terrible at his failure to save the children: guilty, and full of sorrow and sympathy for their families. She had even seen him facing things like this before, when he had chosen a target and missed the sly immortals which slipped past his attack into the vulnerable thatched homes of civilians. He blamed himself for those, but he was never angry. He was always… always…

"What aren't you telling me?" She asked, and then when he looked away she made her voice as stern as she could. "Numair!"

"Jolyon was with them." He said reluctantly. "He was the one who told them how they could get through the barrier."

Daine whistled softly through her teeth, forcing herself not to give in to the rush of anger she felt. Still, her words came out hurt and fierce. "But he _knows_ they're dangerous! Why would he do something so… so…"

Numair shrugged one shoulder, looking away rather than meeting her eyes. "I did ask him. He folded his arms and refused to talk to me. That page's parents were there by then, too… shouting and demanding answers, looking for someone to blame…" He shook his head and his words became quieter, wrought with bitterness. "They kept shouting at him and making threats, and Jolyon drew back more and more. Then, all of a sudden, he just stands bolt upright and screams at me. How it's our fault, how we brought the villagers here, how we should have known they were dangerous when they were stopped by our barrier at the village… it went on and on."

Daine swallowed and managed to give words to her guilty conscience. "He's not wrong."

"No." Numair laughed shortly, a strangely hollow noise. "But it has nothing to do with what happened tonight. I had taken _every_ precaution. If he wasn't such an idiot nothing would have happened. So…"

"So… you lost your temper." The girl guessed, looking at the way the man closed his hands into defensive fists and refused to meet her eyes. A pang of guilt made her honest streak surface and she shook her head, admitting, "I would have lost mine. I'm fair sure I would have started shouting back!"

"People listen to me when I'm angry. They don't listen to ten year old boys. They believed me. But the things that I said…" Numair gritted his teeth and finished the story, "I stormed out of the room before I could truly disgrace myself, but I don't know what to do about Jolyon. I didn't say enough to condemn him, but I laid that page's death at his feet and I left it there to rot. The last thing I heard, Thayet was taking him back while they investigate the whole sorry mess."

"Was it his fault?" Daine waited for Numair's reluctant nod before she sighed. "I suppose we can't do anything to help him, then. "

"Not really. But I don't feel right knowing how much he blames us. He hates us, Daine. How did he get such a twisted opinion of us? I mean, maybe I should apologise for losing my temper, but even that…" Numair started, and then a peculiar expression spread across his face.

It wasn't really a blankness, because that would imply that the expression in his dark eyes was capable of change. It was the opposite of changeable, a kind of frozen completeness which shrouded his eyes and mouth and seemed to even dim the living warmth of his skin.

Daine, recognising the symptoms immediately, breathed out in a rush and gripped his wrist. "Oh no, no you don't. Don't you dare do this. You'd better be cussed well having a heart attack."

The man stood up straight and his eyes slid closed and then open, glassy and empty. The girl released his wrist as if she had been stung and swung her legs out of bed, panicking for a moment and trying to get as far away from him as possible. As soon as she stood up she collapsed to the ground as the weakness in her legs turned her joints into rubber. When she struggled upright she saw that Numair had started moving in a slow, dreamlike lope towards the door. She thought about leaping forward and locking it, but before she could make her tired limbs cooperate he had pushed open the latch and made his way through. Swearing under her breath, Daine forced herself forward and struggled to find the rhythm of walking.

For the first few, horrifying moments, she thought that he was going to slaughter everyone in the castle. The villagers had torn people apart with their bare hands, but then they didn't have the power of the famed Black Mage. He could tear people apart with a thought. When she saw the first servant wandering towards them, bowing respectfully to the silhouette of the empty man, she nearly screamed at him. But she couldn't catch her breath. The man stepped closer, then looked up, and a look of horror closed over his face. He could see the same thing Daine could: the appaling inhumanity of those empty eyes.

The servant backed away, but there was nowhere to go in the narrow hallway. The empty man stopped and stood still, staring with those glasslike eyes at the terrified man who cowered down to the ground. Numair's eyes didn't move, but his entire head moved to follow the servant's path.

The man huddled into an arrow slot and closed his eyes, trembling. Numair watched him in silence for a long moment, and Daine held her breath. His appalling silence was the worst thing. She couldn't even hear him breathing. How could she tell if he was angry, or curious, or even bored? There was nothing about this shell which could communicate any emotion or intention.

Then the empty man opened his mouth, and _screamed._

Daine and the servant both clapped their hands over their ears, feeling tears burst from their eyes at that sound. The girl recognised it in an instant. It was the cold, brutal scream which she had heard before. An explosion of violent anger which roared through the hallways and triggered other screams, as terrified men and women fled to their rooms. Daine bit her lip and waited, knowing that the scream was nowhere near as bad as the silence. She dreaded the silence.

The scream stopped. Numair's head turned, and the glassy eyes fell on Daine. She lowered her hands from her bleeding ears, watching him desperately, ready to turn off her Gift when he next drew a breath.

The empty man's lips closed, and smiled. He moved away.

Daine struggled up to the servant and fought his flailing hands as she tried to uncurl him. "Get help!" She demanded, and physically yanked him down from the shelf. Her arms trembled violently, and she staggered back and found herself screaming at the terrified man. "Did you hear me? Run! Get Alanna! Get help!"

Numair turned a corner, and then pushed open a door. The hallway was deserted; the scream had done its job. The empty man moved forward into the main atrium, and then opened one of the doors which lead into the courtyard. Daine followed a few steps behind, watching him for any sign that he was fighting this magic from within, so that she would have an idea of what was causing it.

A hand fell on her shoulder and she nearly shrieked.

What's happening?" A voice asked.

She turned and nearly laughed, nearly sobbed. "I don't know! Now tell me how it's somehow our fault."

Jolyon looked down at his feet and muttered, "I heard the scream and came out to see what was happening. I figured it was from something I did so I thought maybe I could… fix it."

"That's not how things work!" Daine cried, and moved forward to close the gap between herself and Numair again.

"There goes one…" Jolyon muttered to himself, watching the man moving away. Numair looked back when she was too far away and opened his mouth, and she dreaded that silence so avidly that she forced her tired feet to move her closer. The empty man seemed to approve of this, drawing her along some trail like a fish on a piece of twine. Then, when he was halfway across the drawbridge, Numair's stillness faltered and he stumbled. For a second he was human again, looking back and mouthing something, telling her to stay away…

… and then a small shape burst out of the water and leapt across the bridge, catching him across the chest with vicious sharp fins. The man cried out and raised his hands to defend himself just in time for a second creature to collide with his torso and knock him backwards into the moat. He fell with a gasp and disappeared for a moment. When he resurfaced, gasping, strange silvery shapes emerged from the water around him and yanked him down into the depths.

"No!" Daine shrieked, and ran forwards on trembling legs. Before Jolyon could ask her what she was planning on doing, the girl had dived head first into the murky water, and disappeared from sight.

"There goes the other." Jolyon finished, with a strange feeling of irritation. It was so predictable, wasn't it? The second one of them got into any trouble, the other would trail after them like a lost lamb. Every single time he had seen something bad happening, he knew exactly what to expect. Every single time…

…every single time it had happened, they had been near the villagers. The boy's heart chilled. He wasn't the only one who had seen them. The villagers had seen it, too. They had heard the way Daine and Numair spoke to each other, seen the fury on Numair's face when they had trapped Daine in the barn. They had seen all of it. They would know what to expect, as well. And now…

He remembered the small smile on the empty man's face.

"It's a trap!" He breathed, and then raised his voice to the people who were beginning to creep out of hiding. "The monsters set a trap!"

A few people moved forwards, but most muttered to each other disconsolately and ignored the child. Jolyon knew that they hadn't seen the mages falling into the water. They had no idea anything other than that horrible scream had happened, and of course they already thought that he was a liar. Groaning out a string of curse words, the boy leapt across the courtyard and jumped into the moat, pinching his nose to keep out the foul water. Holding his breath, he opened his eyes and squinted into the murky depths.

For a moment all he could see was shifting colours and floating weeds. Then, through the gloom, he made out the odd rhythm of kicking legs. He pushed himself towards it, dragging himself between strands of weeds rather than trying to swim. When he got closer to the shape he nearly screamed, only managing to stop himself by thinking of the burning airlessness in his lungs. The shape wore Daine's clothes, but the face and hands were wrong – a long and soft face, with huge limpid eyes and flattened nostrils. Webbing span between her fingers. For some reason Jolyon thought of otters, although she was clearly still human.

Daine's progress was desperate but not strong; she was obviously struggling. Her webbed skin grew and faded away as her grip on her magic faded. Still, the wildmage swam with nimble skill, ducking between the trailing weeds and clearly not needing to draw a breath. Her eyes were fixed on something in the gloom. Jolyon squinted, and saw silvery shapes circling around a tall, thin body which could have only been Numair's. Something dark bloomed in the water around the man. In a shudder of sickening horror, the child realised that it was a huge amount of blood which streamed from the wound in the man's chest. The silvery shapes swam around the man in lazy circles, but when the blood grew too thick they avoided swimming through the dark clouds. They had small, dark flints of eyes, and they stared glassily at Daine as she struggled closer.

Jolyon's lungs screamed, and the silent pressure of the water pounded in his ears. The boy shot to the surface like a cork, dragging himself the last few feet with hands that felt like they were made from solid rock. When he surfaced the air had never tasted sweeter.

"Jolyon!" A voice called out, and something dragged him to the shore. The boy numbly realised that there were no hands touching him, but that strange outlines of violet fire were wrapped around his wrists. He scratched at them irritably. Alanna caught him at the shore and planted him on his feet, causing a resounding splat of mud underfoot. "What's happening?"

"They took Master Salmalin." The boy managed, still gasping in air. "I saw Daine chasing them."

"They're running away from her?" Alanna's voice was quite serious, and she looked him straight in the eyes. Jolyon thought for a moment, taking the chance to look away from that eerie purple glare.

"Um, no. They were just holding him. They did it on purpose. They were making her follow him to where they were. I think it's a trap."

The knight looked distractedly into the water. The surface was very still. If Daine had been fighting them then the water would have looked more disturbed, she knew… and if Numair was fighting them then it would have been boiling.

"Run and get help." She ordered the boy, pointing back towards the healers wings. Even if the healers weren't needed, she felt better knowing that the child was far away from a creature which could so easily ensnare two of the most powerful mages in the realm. The thought made a dart of fear run through her own body, but she quickly shook it off. Fear wouldn't help her, it was an indulgence she didn't have time for. Now was the time to act.

She wouldn't dive straight into the water, though. Unlike Daine, she thought snidely, she wasn't _completely_ stupid.

She planted her hand onto the surface and closed her eyes. She couldn't see into the depths, but she could sense both of their heartbeats, warm and vibrant, beneath the water. They weren't dead, then. There was a strange flicker of other shapes – not warm blooded, but definitely alive. They were moving slowly, without any real purpose. Alanna decided that they were distracted with whatever Daine was doing. She braced herself and was just about to dive in to follow them when the water stirred, and a great wave crashed against the shore. Soaked from head to foot, the knight dashed water from her eyes and looked wildly around just in time to see Daine struggling to drag Numair ashore.

"He's hurt," The girl gasped, and toppled forward into the mud in exhaustion. Alanna rushed forward and caught the unconscious man before he could slide back into the moat, feeling her hands slip in the mud and blood which soaked his shirt. Daine was right, the wound was deep and likely already infected from the stale moat water. She pressed her hand to his chest and sent her magic flooding into his veins, using more brute power than skill to draw the skin back together and stop the flow of blood. Beside her, she heard Daine cough and struggle to drag herself up the bank.

"Don't move, you idiot." The knight growled, still focusing on the flow of her gift. Daine groaned and Alanna heard a squelch as the girl apparently obeyed. When the lioness turned her attention to her, she could see that her order had been a good idea: a long laceration followed the line of the girl's artery in her left leg. It was only the thick mud which was keeping her from bleeding out.

"What's in the moat?" Alanna demanded, planting her hands on the girl's knee to heal her. Daine shook her head and forced her eyes open through the layer of grime.

"I don't know! But… oh, they hurt me! But they were just angry at me. They're not… don't kill them, Alanna."

"They trapped you in a barn, half drowned you, and you're both in shreds." The woman growled.

"They don't understand that. They were just trying to talk to me. They were angry because they think I've been ignoring them." The girl pushed herself onto her elbows, trembling. "They don't understand anything. I have to talk to them. I need to explain…"

"You need to lie down." Alanna said tersely, and shoved on the girl's shoulder firmly enough to send her back into the mud. Daine groaned loudly and fell back, throwing her hands over her eyes as if she was desperately trying to think of a way to argue back. Alanna let her sulk, but then decided it might be better to reassure her friend rather than simply bludgeon her with facts.

"You must have convinced them of something, if they agreed to let Numair go." She said. Daine nodded and shut her eyes, thinking more slowly now.

"I said I wouldn't listen to a word until I'd taken him to the surface. I said… I said, if he drowned I would skin them alive."

Alanna shivered at the note in Daine's voice. If the threat hadn't chilled the creatures as much as it did herself, then they would have had no souls at all. It was obvious that the girl meant every word. No wonder they had let her go.

"You can't go back into the water now." Alanna said, looking at the girl's waxy skin and belatedly remembering what had happened the night before. It was frankly impressive that she was able to string a sentence together, let alone drag Numair away from a nest of hostile immortals.

"It's alright." Daine covered her eyes again, this time more wearily. "They used up a lot of strength controlling Numair, and more from doing it in day time… they shied away from the light under the water, so I think it hurts them, or drains them, or… oh, I don't care!" She rolled clumsily onto her side and prodded Numair in the waist. "Wake up, you idiot. You're supposed to be the one who thinks about nonsense like this."

"That hurts, Daine." He muttered, not opening his eyes. "Your new pets tried to kill me right about where you're poking that merciless finger of yours."

"Coming from the man who let a _goldfish_ possess him…"

Numair opened his eyes and looked at her narrowly. "They're silver."

"All immortals are silver! It doesn't make them any less of a goldfish!"

"This is truly a wonderful relationship you two have." Alanna remarked, sitting back on her heels with a wry smile. "I can't believe I was angry at you. All you two do is get hurt and lie in the mud arguing."

"We're too weak to do anything else." Daine grumbled, not looking around. "Otherwise we'd probably be throwing things by now."

"We call that foreplay." Numair mumbled, a note of wicked, unbidden laughter in his voice. Daine choked out an answering laugh and added,

"I like his body well enough, but gods above, I just love seeing a goldfish monster looking back at me through those jet black eyes!"

"And she's the most wonderful slime-covered otter creature in Corus." Numair retorted. "God knows I couldn't have done better if I went courting in a menagerie!"

"You're both being ridiculous." Alanna tried not to smile, but she couldn't quite look severe enough to be convincing. "I think that blood loss has made you both giddy."

"George once told me you have the nicest breasts of any of the men he grew up with." Numair said idly. "How much blood had he lost?"

"Not as much as he'll be losing tonight," Alanna snapped, blushing fiercely. Both of the mages were laughing helplessly now, and her flare of temper quickly faded. She tried not to use the word 'goldfish', because she felt the silly word took away some of the seriousness of what she meant to be an absolutely serious question. "Do you think they'll be a danger tonight?"

"No." Daine sounded certain, and repeated the word more loudly when Numair made an incredulous sound. "No, really! They've been trying to get my attention. Now they know I'll come back. They don't need to do anything else."

As if to answer her, a strange noise started up. It sounded like a crowd cheering a tournament, hundreds of voices all joined together. But the voices weren't happy, they were confused, and angry, and unhappy. It grew louder and louder, echoing into the courtyard from behind the barrier in the barns.

The villagers had woken up.


	23. It Works

"I'm not calling them goldfish." Numair grumbled. "What's their real name?"

"They don't have one." Daine smiled and tapped the end of his nose with her forefinger, "Stay still!"

"I am more than capable of buttoning my own jerkin, Mistress Sarrasri." He said, wincing down at his arm whose livid scar had earned him a very stern look. "You're treating me as if they tore my arm off, not just cut my shoulder. I'm fine! If Alanna had taken two more seconds healing it then you wouldn't even know I'd been hurt."

"Now you know how it feels to be fussed over." The girl pulled a face when he made a scoffing sound and fixed the last button. "There!"

"Aquatic hybrids." Numair adopted his most aloof tone. Daine decided that it was best to ignore him. She would never remember all these long syllables even if he did decide on the perfect name. Today they had been formally summoned into court to give a full explanation of what the creatures were, what they wanted, and how on earth they were planning on getting them out of the moat. The court had apparently been swarming with yet more rumours in the day since the villagers had awoken, and had barely concealed their patience for long enough for the two mages to sleep off the healing.

Daine would have rushed down to the moat the moment she woke up, but Numair stopped her and made her sit down and eat a proper breakfast before he was satisfied that she wouldn't exhaust herself for the third time in as many days. He was far too besotted, he realised when she began waking up, to simply order her to be sensible as he had when she was a child and he was her teacher. She had barely listened then, but Numair knew that if he made his voice stern enough she would obey with a kind of awed, stubborn pride.

In other people he would have suspected that they were being insincere. He would have studied them to look for the trick, but Daine would always back down with an expression which seemed to say that she genuinely deferred to his authority. He suspected that she had often forgotten that he was supposed to be in charge. It wasn't that she challenged him in any way, it was simply that for the most part she treated them as two independent people who met as equals because… well, they both had two hands, and two feet, and they usually walked in the same direction. The last time she had really bowed to his orders had been in Dunlath, when she had taken such a dislike to wearing that horrible, garish dress to that ill-fated dinner. After that she had been alone again, scavenging in the woods with the wolf pack, reliving her childhood with a new bow and another young girl to care for.

The first time the woods had swallowed her up, the Gallan snows had been cruel to her body and the people had been vicious to her grieving heart. The solitude had taken away her childhood with surgical brutality. Numair secretly believed that until Dunlath, Daine had found nothing to fill the gap which that broken innocence had left. She was not an adult, and she would not be for many more years, but without the gentle shelter of childish trust she was far more fragile than she would ever admit.

He had worried about her when she was trapped in Dunlath, but the experience seemed to leave her with something solid and warm in her nature which had been missing before. The wolves had left her with their blessing, this time. The fractures in her pack were healed, and she was comforted by the sure knowledge that they were safe and protected by their own gods. Her new friends knew almost nothing about her past, yet they readily accepted her for who she was – Maura with a shy smile, and Rikash with a sneer, but neither of them with any form of judgement or condemnation for the strange things that made her different from other people.

And he… what had he done? A tree stood in the castle grounds which was once a man, and Daine had seen him cast the spell to curse the traitorous mage for all time. Numair remembered telling Maura that she should protect the tree and not let anyone cut it down. He had been half joking, but half of him still remembered the expression in the mage's eyes when he had deliberately sent his lethal magic screaming towards Daine.

Engaging a non-mage in a magic duel was inexcusable, Numair told himself. It was like killing civilians in war. Nothing could forgive an act like that. There were laws which the mage's council upheld against such things, but in the middle of a fraught battle there was no time to think of capturing another mage. There was only time to…

Trees lived for hundreds of years. Numair didn't know if there was anything left of the human trapped in those twisting branches. Sometimes he shuddered at the thought. Most of the time, remembering the confused, vulnerable way Daine had leaned out of the window, he hoped that Tristram was conscious for every second of it.

So, he knew he couldn't order Daine, and she hated mornings so avidly that she would begrudge an early row for the whole day. So trying to talk to her was out, too. In the end Numair decided to do the sensible thing. He enchanted her boots to make them cling to any surface he stuck them to, and carefully hid one inside the chimney and the other on the ceiling above the wash basin. When Daine grudgingly gave up searching and ate her breakfast, she gave him a wan little smile and nudged his foot under the table.

"I might just steal yours." She said, yawning and scraping some butter onto her cold toast.

"They won't fit you."

"I only need to get to the moat. You didn't let me even put my clothes on last time you dragged me down there."

"I don't remember being possessed," He admitted, adding in what he hoped was a serious tone: "Besides, you'd have more luck finding your own boots than getting me to part with mine."

She cut her eyes up at him. "I can think of at least two ways of getting those boots right now, Numair. One of them doesn't even need me to leave this table."

"Go on," He folded his arms. "Try me."

Daine shook her head, finished her mouthful of food, wiped off her fingers and mouth and smiled. Beckoning him closer, she lowered her voice to a caressing murmur and laid her palm flat on his cheek. He had doubtless been expecting some trick, but she felt him tense at what she was doing. Why? It wasn't anything she hadn't done before, but… Daine shook off the odd feeling of unease.

"Numair," She breathed in the lowest voice she knew, and ran her lips gently over his nose. She felt the skin under her palm and lips heaten as he flushed. The feeling of doing something wrong grew stronger, and she suddenly felt the cheapness in her actions. She understood why he was so reserved. But his body responded, and she felt his hands moving around her waist and drawing her closer. It just didn't feel right.

Daine abruptly changed her mind. Keeping up the pretence that she was going to try to seduce him, she kissed his nose and then carried on in the same breathy murmur, "My love, I… I finished eating. Now I want you. I want you to… to give me my clothes or I'll throw your books out of the window."

He covered his face with one hand and started laughing helplessly at the rapid change in her words. Daine grinned and sat back, folding her arms and mimicking his arch, challenging expression. "Did I win?"

"I'd like to think I know women well enough not to fall for that trick," He said, still laughing.

"You said I wasn't like other women," She replied with a pout. He kissed her nose.

"Exactly. You're a wonderful, sincere young lady, which is why I know for a fact that you _would_ throw my cherished, rare and _expensive_ books into the mud just to prove a point."

She smirked. "You know me so well."

"Not really," He admitted with a rueful expression. "I know you as a person, not as a woman. I was expecting you to threaten my books. But it still unnerves me when you start…" he made a meaningless gesture with his hand. "…being…so _obviously_ female, I guess."

"Oh, I'm not being female." She looked dismissive. "It's just sex, isn't it? So it would probably work on me like it works on you. I wanted to see if I could do it, that's all."

"It would have worked," He confessed with a slight reddening rising in his cheeks. Sitting back a little, he asked her, "What does that tell you, magelet?"

She paused, and scratched her nose thoughtfully. "I had to stop. I wasn't planning on changing my mind, but I could see that it was working and I… I didn't want to do that to you. It doesn't feel fair to use the way we feel about each other to get our own way."

He didn't answer, but raised his hand to gently brush her hair away from her forehead. For a few moments he just looked at her, his eyes asking her a question which Daine didn't know if she had answered. She looked back, biting her lip. For some reason it felt awkward to be under so much scrutiny, even from Numair. She had been closer to this man than any other person in her life, and yet when he retreated into his own thoughts she often felt as if he were shutting her out. He had done it less since their long conversations in the tower, but after the weeks of travelling and upheaval it felt strange again.

He caressed her cheek with his thumb, and when she closed her eyes and leaned into the warmth of his palm she felt him brush her forehead with his lips. Then he drew away, and by the time she opened her eyes he was already pushing back his chair and walking away. He gave her both of her boots without a word, brushing soot off one of them, and left her to get dressed.

She retreated into her own confused thoughts while she pulled on her clothes, and only opened her mouth when she saw Numair reaching for his own coat. "Numair," She started, wishing her voice was a little stronger, "Erm… would you be offended if I asked you not to come with me?"

He blinked and took the coat off its peg. "I won't get possessed again, Daine."

"That's not why I'm asking!" She blurted out. Then, fiddling with her bootlaces, she managed to make her voice a little more convincing. "I need them to concentrate on me, that's all. I don't want them getting distracted. And I don't want…"

"You don't want…?" He prompted. She blushed and shook her head.

"They're more like animals than any other immortal I've met, you know? They're going to behave like animals. Do you remember the seals on the beach, and those crocodiles in Carthak? They were just doing what's natural for them, but I thought… I really thought you were going to hurt them for it. They don't see defending their territory or finding food as a bad thing, not a bit. The fish things only hurt all those people and us because they had seen us reacting to pain and death for so long, fighting and hurting each other in the war. If that's how their pack communicates then… then it's natural for them, but it doesn't make them bad. If they lash out at me I think… I think you'd kill them."

He looked narrowly across the room at her, and Daine spread her hands in what she hoped was a soothing gesture. It came out looking frustrated. "I could ask you not to, and you could promise me you wouldn't dream of it, but you know that the second they even came too close to me you'd lash out. You don't stop to think when things happen to me."

Numair put his coat down and for a long moment he covered his face with one hand, obviously trying to think. His thoughts were clearly spiralling, because he kept drawing a breath to say something and then shaking his head and falling back into silence. Daine waited, knowing that she couldn't say anything else to change whatever he was thinking about now.

In the end he raised a hand and beckoned her closer. When she was within an arm's length he stopped her, pressed his fingertip to her chin, and muttered a few words under his breath. Daine felt the odd glow of magic breathing into her skin, and asked him the question with her eyes.

"There." He said, and drew his hand back as if she had stung him. "It'll last for an hour, Daine. If you're not back by then I hope you'll forgive me for coming to check that you're alive?"

"Don't be petty." She scowled, wriggling her joints to dispel the odd tingle of his shield. The man rolled his eyes at her and opened the door.


	24. Comprehension

Numair's inability to really comprehend animal behaviour had been a sticking point between them for as long as they had known each other. By now, they usually understood enough about one another's' area of expertise to know when they should steer clear. Daine had learned about her teacher's legendary power very quickly, and respected him from the start. But it had taken Numair months to realise that his young student comprehended her magic in a way that was quite different to his own. Where he had complete control over every aspect of his gift, Daine's was far more malleable and temperamental. She could control animals, but she refused to do it. She could order them, but she preferred to ask.

Numair struggled to understand how such a power could be mastered. At first, he had thought that she was simply not trying hard enough. He would see an unbiddable horse yanking at its bit and nearly throwing its rider, and he would ask Daine why she did not simply command the horse to be quiet. She always looked surprised when he asked her questions like that, but she didn't seem to know how to answer him.

One weekend, soon after she had taken her revenge against the students in the castle, they travelled to the tower to collect some books which had been abandoned in the creaking attic. A day's ride became a few night's visit, as the lanky mage pried open crate after crate and exclaimed over forgotten treasures. He often worked until two or three in the morning, returning to his room exhausted but still buzzing from excited energy.

On one such evening a hedgehog had curled up beside the mage's hairbrush and, in the dim candlelight, had suffered a very rude awakening. Numair's cry of horror had woken Daine up, and he had furiously confronted his student about it.

She bit her lip at the sight of the red scratches on his neck, but looked away before he could tell if the gesture was laughter or guilt. He thought she was laughing at him, and his quick temper rose. "Daine," He said in a clipped voice, "If your animals don't stay in your room, then they're not welcome in my home at all."

The girl gaped, and looked around at the floor. As usually happened at night, the room was thick with different animals. The domesticated ones – cats and dogs- were sniffing at the wild animals, who had made the trip to stare at the human who could understand them, and who would keep them safe for a night.

"You know I can't make them leave," She told the man. Then, more quietly, she added: "I have tried."

"Try harder." The man snapped, rubbing at his neck. "Or just stop making excuses for them and lock your door. You're the one who lets them in."

"I don't like being locked in." The girl shook her head. "You know that, Numair. And I'm fair sure they'd scratch at the doors and windows if I didn't open them."

"Then use your magic." Numair folded his arms, looking unimpressed at her answer. "Ask them politely to go away or try ordering them, like I've cussed well trained you to. Make them leave."

Daine looked up at him, and then down at the otter who was rolling around in her lap. Her lips moved as she spoke, and the animal stopped rolling for a minute and raised itself up. Tilting its head to one side, it raised a webbed forepaw and gently patted the human's nose. Then it yawned widely and returned to rolling.

"He said he'll leave in the morning, 'cos it's dangerous to cross the meadow in the dark." Daine stroked the creature's soft stomach gently, not daring to look up at her teacher. "And... tomorrow he won't be back, but there'll be as many new ones coming to visit as there are tonight, and the same again the day after that. It doesn't make any difference if I ask them. There are so many of them."

"I can't hold a ward for that long." Numair said, almost to himself, tugging at his nose and looking irritated as if she were refusing him on purpose. "But this can't continue. I'm sick of having them constantly underfoot. Whether you find a way or I do, we're going to get them out of the house. They have to leave, Daine."

"Then I'd have to leave, too." Her voice was so quiet that Numair barely heard it, and he had taken a few more frustrated steps across the threshold before his brain caught up with his ears.

"What?" His word was flat, as if he hadn't meant to say it. Then, seeing the girl's defensively hunched shoulders, he repeated: "What do you mean?"

"If you want them gone, then I'll go back to Corus. I'm sure I'll be allowed to lodge with the Riders. Or maybe... maybe in the hay loft, if the ponies don't mind, because then no-one would feel like the animals were out of place. Just me. But... but I'd soon settle in."

"Don't make this into an ultimatum." Numair folded his arms, looking uncomfortable.

"What's a one of them?"

"It means a... a problem where all the solutions are extreme." The man shook his head, feeling very abashed at where his fierce temper had brought them to in so short a time. "I didn't tell you to leave. You're hearing things I didn't say."

"You said it was my fault the animals are here, and it's my fault for not finding a way to make them stop, and... and even though I tell everyone that I'm not doing it on purpose everyone else thinks that I am. They don't listen to me." Her voice grew even quieter. "And the voices in my head, even when I'm sleeping they don't go away, and when I want to be alone they won't stop, and people are scared of it. Of me."

She smiled down at the otter again and held out a finger. "But that makes me glad the animals come to me, because they're not scared of me. They're just bein' themselves, and not all suspicious or blaming, just... themselves. It goes in circles. And the more it spins, the more I... I feel..." The girl scratched her nose awkwardly and swallowed, not looking up. "I... feel like I should be back with my pack, where the humans can't... can't get to me."

Numair exhaled slowly and sat down on the end of her bed, shooing a cat away with an awkward gesture. "Daine, what aren't you telling me?" When she was silent he looked guiltily at his hands and added, "I'm sorry for scolding you."

She shrugged and looked away, rooting in the box on her dresser for a tiny scrap of bandage. The otter stilled, and held out a sprained back paw with a look of intense self-pity. Numair watched the miniature operation as if he were seeing it for the first time. He had to admit that it was unnerving watching the animals around Daine. Their beady eyes followed her quick fingers and they moved around her in uncannily humanoid ways. He had grown used to it in the few months since Daine had started her training.

"When Gifted children are born, they play with coloured light above their beds." He said softly, watching her fashion a tiny splint from a scrap of kindling. "I set the bedcurtains on fire and then just lay there, cooing at them. My nurse told my mother I was a wicked changeling. Even my mother was scared of me, after that. The first thing I remember was seeing that fear in adults' eyes, whenever I was upset or angry. I'm afraid they used to spoil me rotten to try to keep me happy."

He wondered how much of it Daine was listening to, because the words felt very odd to him. It was only after, when he was alone again, that he realised that he had never told another person any of this before. Daine gently raised up the otter's hip so she could begin securing the bandage.

"You're a mage." She said blankly. "People understand that."

"People understand crocodiles and bandits. It doesn't make them less terrifying." The man replied. Daine smiled a little at that and asked him to hand her a knife. She cut the bandage into two strips and tied off the ends.

"Your family still loved you, didn't they? Even though they were scared?" She asked almost inaudibly. Numair nodded.

"Yes, they loved me."

"My ma loved me." Daine melted the base of a wax candle in the flame of another, and carefully started dripping wax onto the knot in the bandage. The otter squirmed, and she frowned. "I think she would have loved me more if I had magic. Proper magic. She always looked at me like… like she was expecting something else from me. I wasn't quite good enough, on my own." She sighed and put the candle down, holding the otter securely so it couldn't wriggle while the wax dried into a waterproof seal. "People see animals as lower than them. Some days I wonder if this magic you say I have makes me more or less of a person than I was without it. Whether my ma would accept it, or whether she would still test me for something else which is missing."

"There's nothing missing in you," Numair told her, wondering where this sudden morose outpouring was coming from. Daine had been quiet for a few weeks, he knew, but he had assumed she was simply tired from her lessons and work, and that a few days in the tower would give her the rest that she needed. Now he could see that there was something else, something which made her feel so unsettled that she even thought that he was going to evict her from his home. "What's happened, Daine?"

She drew a deep breath, stared at the floor, and in a few brief sentences told him the whole story about the bullies, and the things they had told her, and the way she had paid them back for their vicious behaviour. She kept her fears until last, finally admitting that they had told her stories about him, as well. "They said that you would be ashamed of me, and that you wouldn't forgive me for making you look bad. I always figured I have to be better than the noble people to start off with, or else I don't really deserve all the good fortune you all have shown me, but… sometimes it's fair difficult pretending I can do everything with a smile on my face."

"How long have you been pretending?" He asked, biting back the rising chill in his stomach at her brutally honest words. He wanted to find those bullies and knock their heads together for filling her head with such nonsense. In a way he felt incredibly proud of Daine for being so creative with her revenge, although she had related her actions with a look of intense shame. She shrugged off his question.

"Daine, you're here because we care about you. You don't have to earn that. Onua and Alanna and Thayet and your friends in the riders and everyone else aren't just keeping you around to make you work and smile at them from time to time. You're not a servant taking wages or a… a waif looking for charity. None of them believe a single one of those things about you. And even if you did do something wrong, it'd be no more serious than if anyone else messed up. Knowing your friends, you'd be teased for a few days, and then someone else would make another mistake and yours would be forgotten. As for casting you out because you faced down a few bullies…" he made a scornful noise and shook his head. Daine looked at him in suspicious amazement.

"What about you?" She asked. Numair paused.

"Is my opinion important here?" He asked. She nodded fervently, and he tugged at his nose thoughtfully. "Well, I guess I would say that… I've been in your position, for lots of boring reasons involving a man who wears too much jewellery and his captain who has far too many spies. While that's a story for another day, Daine, I'm sure you can imagine how terrible I was at fitting in to the court at Corus, working my way up the ranks of mages and stepping on far too many toes on my way there…"

Daine, who had seen the way the other court mages glared at Numair when he wasn't looking, giggled a little at this. Numair grinned at her.

"It takes time, and patience, and sometimes you need to grit your teeth and ignore people who you know are in the wrong," He said, a little clumsily. "And sometimes you need to trust the rest of us to help you."

"I wanted to," She said, in an odd little voice, "I didn't think you'd believe me."

Numair remembered his angry words about the animals, and felt deeply ashamed. He often forgot that Daine had to navigate her magic with the skill of a diplomat, not the blunt energy of a fighting mage. Some of the things she struggled with may have simply been impossible, but it wouldn't have occurred to the man to question her progress. Animals had free will, after all. They lived and breathed in a way that fire and water could not. They had their own minds, and it was simply against Daine's nature to dominate them in the way that a normal mage could master the elements.

For a few months after that he watched the girl carefully, often biting his tongue when he wanted to push her a little further in her training. He learned a new way of teaching from her, completely at odds to the strict way that his own teachers had drilled him in mage craft. When an experiment went wrong he learned how to laugh, how to congratulate her for the way she had tried to adapt to the animal's bad temper or odd ways.

Once, when he was trying to test the range of Daine's gift, they had walked several miles away from the paddock before Daine stopped and admitted that Cloud had been arguing with her the whole way, and was now refusing to say a single word. The only solution, she said with an apologetic sigh, was to traipse all the way back to the stables, fuss over the grumpy grey pony, and then try again.

By the time they had done that and returned to their place on the trail it was starting to rain. "Do you think this will affect the results?" Daine had asked, out of nowhere. Numair had paused and considered that. Seeing his confusion, the girl added, "Well, I know normal magic doesn't get changed, but you said magic gets amplified in cold water… but on the other hand it's harder to hear people talking over the rain, isn't it? Do you think they cancel each other out?"

"I literally just wanted to keep walking until you couldn't hear her anymore." Numair said, a little taken aback by the string of complicated questions. "That's how I tested my range. I cast a ward and then walked away until my link to it snapped."

"Did you do it in the rain?" Daine asked, a little pertly. The man shook his head, smiling wanly as water dripped from his sodden hair. The girl laughed and pointed back towards the castle.

"Gods, what a downpour! Let's go and get dry. We can do this tomorrow, can't we?"

"Don't argue with her tomorrow." Numair suggested wryly, and they turned around. The next day he was awoken by a knock on the door, and Daine cheerfully told him that while she was up early taking the ponies to pasture, she decided to test the range herself.

"It was a bit misty," She said, with a cheeky grin, "But I thought you'd like to know the result."

He wasn't offended by Daine asking him to leave her to speak to the immortals on her own, but he was surprised at how shy she seemed about asking him. She had been so used to doing things alone that he took her solitude as a matter of course, knowing that if she genuinely needed help then she knew that she could ask. He felt uneasy knowing that she would be near the creatures who had so slyly enslaved a whole village, but Daine was right: they were expressing their nature, and now that they knew she was going to speak to them, they had stopped all of their more threatening actions.

While she was gone he absentmindedly tidied up his rooms, sending a servant to collect most of Daine's belongings from her own suite and only realising the impropriety of that when the servant handed the bundle over with a knowing smile. Wincing, Numair unpacked her clothes and took out some of the smart clothes that she wore when attending court. Daine returned a few minutes before the protection spell wore out, looking a little tired but content. She looked around at the chaos in the room, and then groaned aloud when she saw the pile of blue silk.

"You have to be joking."

"The summons came while you were busy." Numair said, gesturing towards a note on the table. Daine read it with a scowl and threw herself down in a chair by the fire, stretching out her legs. Steam started rising from her hair and clothes.

"You're soaked to the skin." The man said.

"Thank you for telling me." Daine closed her eyes wearily and kicked off her boots, narrowly missing knocking over the poker as the shoes went flying. There was an indignant squawk, and Kitten uncurled herself from her spot by the warm hearth to treat her mother to a glare. Daine opened one eye and held out her hand apologetically. Kitten nuzzled against her fingertips for a second, and then yammered something when a drop of water dripped onto her nose.

"That reminds me," Daine murmured, "You need a bath, Kit."

The dragon stood bolt upright and then darted for the door. Daine chuckled as she watched her go, closing her eyes again.

"I'm not so tired," She said aloud, anticipating Numair's question. "I just have a lot to concentrate on with that otter shape. I try to think of what I should be telling the immortals, but all I have in my head is a little voice saying, breathe!" She shook her head from side to side, looking wan. "I'm still getting used to being on dry land, but then I'll be fine."

Numair came and sat next to her, handing her a towel. Daine smiled her thanks and began squeezing water from her hair.

"If you don't mind, I'll tell you what they said at the meeting, with everyone else." She said, her voice muffled by the thick fabric. "There's a lot we'll need to all talk about together, and I'm fair sure it'll take hours. I need a break."

"Alright," Numair caught the edge of the towel and raised it up a little so he could see her face. Daine pulled a face at him and pointed conspiratorially at the blue dress.

"That silly thing," She muttered, "They'll be asking me all of these official questions while I look like some useless noblewoman, and then one of the ministers will give me that look which is just slightly too patronising, and then I'll wish I kept on these clothes so they could see how much mud I end up covered in to bring something to their shining cabinet meetings. I bet you two coppers that one of them uses the words 'my dear' this afternoon."

"Done." Numair grinned and shook his head. "It'll be, 'young lady', and whoever says it will nod his head gallantly in your direction."

"Ugh!" She threw her hands up in a pantomime of disgust and then laughed. "Imagine if one of them did that to Alanna!"

"I believe that's how Lord Swerengen lost his front teeth."

"Prob'ly." Daine stretched and then leaned her head on his shoulder. "What was it she was saying when I was asleep? About Lord… Sy… Zy…?"

"Lord Sylotol." Numair looked down at his hands for a moment and bit back the odd feeling of guilt that the name made him feel. "He's an old man who lives in Castle Greene, near the southern coast. He has a large family and his castle is seen as a kind of gathering place for the southern lords. People who can't make the journey to the court at Corus often spend their summers there."

Daine looked nonplussed. "Why was Alanna angry about him? Did he do something wrong?"

"No!" Numair laughed at the idea, remembering the old man's plump and cheerful face. He acted more like an innkeeper than a nobleman, and his sense of humour was famed even among the professional players of the land. He bit his lip and tried to think of a way to explain. "Thayet asked him if you could go to Castle Greene."

"Why?" The girl asked, her eyes wide, "Is there something there?"

"Not really. A few people thought it would be good for you to distance yourself from everything here. They thought having some time away would help you decide what kind of life you wanted to live, rather than simply carrying on doing the first thing that you found when you came to Tortall. But then the barrier broke and it became a bit of a moot point."

"Oh." Daine knew there must be more to it than that, but he had told her more than enough to make her head spin. It sounded as if her friends had been making plans about her for months. Finding out that they had been so complicated was staggering to her. Usually she wouldn't expect her adopted family to co-operate for long enough to ice a birthday cake together, so for them to arrange weeks away from her job and her home without letting the secret slip was amazing. She imagined Alanna being frustrated that so much hard work had gone to waste, and decided that it was no surprise that the woman had been so angry at being thwarted.

"I wouldn't move away now," Her voice was thoughtful, but certain, "I already made my choice. I want to stay with you. I suppose Alanna knows that, and that's why she's so angry."

Numair hadn't told her enough for her to guess at the long nights of arguments and bitter words between her friends, but for the present he decided to leave the story where it lay. Daine would only be hurt by finding out the rest of it. He nodded and Daine smiled, nestling closer. The man slowly became aware of an itching sensation in his shoulder, and soon it was so unbearable that he had to sit up and nudge Daine away. Her clothes had been damp enough for the water to seep through his shirt. Seeing the exasperated expression on his face, Daine smiled apologetically but couldn't quite hide the mirth in her eyes.

"I suppose I should get dressed," She concluded, standing up. Numair shook his head and pulled her back down. Picking up the towel, he carefully ran it along her throat, catching the drops that had escaped from her curls, before slowly unlacing the neckline of her shirt and letting it slide open. Daine closed her eyes, shivering a little as he moved the soft fabric along her collar bone, and then along to the curves of her shoulder.

"Are you cold?" He murmured, leaning forward to kiss her cheek. Daine shook her head, and his voice grew heated. "Good."

She raised her arms obediently when he raised the hem of her shirt, pulled a face when he tugged it over her head, and lowered her arms back around his shoulders with a challenging look. "I thought you wanted me to get changed."

"It honestly started out that way," He murmured back, running the towel down the line of her spine with maddening gentleness. Daine laughed and then gasped out a half shriek as he caught her around the waist and lifted her into his lap. He kissed her playfully, running his fingers gently across her waist and laughing when she wriggled at the ticklish sensation. She dimly heard the soft thud as the towel fell onto the rug. For some reason, the sound made her laugh aloud.

"This is fair silly, isn't it?" She announced in a stage whisper, kissing away the questioning set of the man's mouth, she explained, "Love making. It's the strangest thing. Do you ever think about it?"

"Far more than I should," He replied, tweaking her nose with a grin and starting to pay some very obvious attention to her naked breasts. Daine fought back a moan even while her body arched into his caresses.

"I mean… I mean it's so… so…oh!"

"Gods," he breathed, and kissed the side of her neck. She could feel the laughter rumbling in his chest, under a very heated string of words. "Did I cause that inarticulacy, sweetling?"

She caught her breath and tried to get her mind to focus on something that wasn't the way he felt against her skin, the way her heart was racing, the way his hands were… oh, sweet Goddess, but…!

"You… just want me to stop talking!" She managed, with a certain amount of triumph. He laughed and kissed her soundly, shaking his head as he broke away.

"No, magelet. But I love it when you moan." He moved his hands again, as if proving a point, and when the girl couldn't bite back a cry he smiled darkly. Daine opened her eyes and if her own smile was shaky, it was no less playful.

For a few moments she shifted forward a little in his lap and pressed against him, finding that the motion of love making sent shivers of heat through her body even through layers of fabric, until he kissed her fiercely and his eyes held the one question she always knew the answer to.

"You have to moan, too." She whispered. He caught her chin and kissed her again, his eyes dark and full of need.

"Please," He said, and laughed shakily. "I want you."

She wondered about the things which had embarrassed her before. There was no shyness left between them, now, just this teasing gentleness which she had been missing in the week since they had left the tower. Thinking about that, she kissed Numair a little more sweetly than she had meant to in reply, and marvelled at how easily it changed the way they were touching each other. Their light, playful touches turned into slow, careful caresses, and their laughter faded into a soft silence where every shuddering sigh made slow heat dance through their veins. When they finally joined together Numair moaned, and Daine felt an answering rush of pleasure in her own body at the sound before the intoxicating feeling of being filled made all of her thoughts rush out of her head.

They moved slowly together on the sofa until the urgency overtook them, and then she felt Numair laying her down, pushing her gently into the rug, and he was heavy, or maybe the breathlessness was something better, because even in the throes of passion he loved her enough to protect her, even from his own body, from its hard and desperate motion, raising himself onto his elbows and looking down at her with passion and love that he felt for only her. When Daine saw that every part of her body seemed to come alive, and she threw her head back and cried out and reached out for him and turned into flames and dust and nothing, nothing but his answering cry was real any more.

As they both collapsed into a tired, blissful exhaustion, he caught her in his arms and held her safely rather than lying on top of her. The gesture made Daine smile and gently kiss the side of his throat before cuddling into his arms. Her own body was singing, every nerve still crying out for more and yet, somehow, deeply content.

"Numair," She said, "I really do love you."

He made a meaningless gesture with one hand, running the thumb along her stomach. His voice was breathless, but wry. "You love having sex with me, Daine."

"That too, but it doesn't make the rest of it any less true." Her voice grew a little shy. "I don't feel any differently about you than I did before I found out that… that… before we… you… ugh!" She rolled her eyes in disbelief. "I told you it was silly. I refuse to believe there are words for this."

"There are, but I doubt you'll find them in the palace dictionary." Numair opened his eyes, grinning wickedly, and cuddled her tightly for a moment until she squeaked and poked him in the waist to make him let go. He rolled onto his back and made a show of steepling his fingers in front of his nose, putting on his most academic voice. "Let's just say that… we're very good together, shall we?"

"Are we?" She asked, and for a second the man wondered if she was teasing him again. Then he saw the genuine question behind her almost anxious question, and understood. It wasn't 'Are we?', it was 'Am I?'

"Better than I've ever known it," He was being absolutely honest, but he hoped she wouldn't press him for more. It seemed a little masochistic of her to judge herself like that, but he had been expecting her to ask sooner or later, if only because she had nothing else to compare this to.

It hadn't occurred to him that she might feel insecure, after those first few days when she had asked him to show her everything he knew, and then happily asked him if he wanted to go over anything again… and again and again… he felt his blood heating again at the memory, and forced himself to behave. Of course, that made other memories begin to jostle for his attention, and his fingers curled as if he were really sinking them into her thick brown hair, watching the mischievous expression on her face while she ducked her head down and…

"We do actually have to get dressed," He said, more to himself than to Daine. He felt her body move as she huffed out a sigh, and wished that he had enough self-control that even that small motion didn't make him want her again. She sat up, shook out her tangled hair, and smiled down at him with the bright expression which meant she already knew exactly what he was thinking. That was the last straw. He caught her arm and pulled her down again into his arms. The memories hadn't won, he decided, but by all the gods he wanted to add to them.

"We can be quick." He told himself, and her, with a determined look. Daine laughed and shook her head, moving closer with sinuous greed.

"Quick? Don't you dare."


	25. Surface

In the end, Daine had stopped trying to pry Kitten off her shoulder. The dragon refused to listen to her mother, and whenever the girl tried to drag her away she sank her claws a little deeper into the slick blue fabric. By the time Daine surrendered they were both gritting their teeth in stubborn irritation, and the dress was in danger of becoming a rag.

"Fine!" Daine threw up her hands and stood up so quickly that the dragon wobbled. "Stay there!"

Kit planted her hind paws onto Daine's hip and wrapped her tail around the girl's waist like a smug, scaly belt.

"Why are you doing this, Kit?" Daine asked, biting back her irritation and hastily dragging a comb through her curls. Because of the scuffle she was running even later than she already had been. Just as she'd managed to drag the yards of fabric over her head and lace up all the annoying fastenings, Kit had leapt onto her shoulder face-first and refused to let go. If she hadn't already been flustered about the time Daine would have seen the warning signs on the dragon's downturned face, but now she was stuck with a very clingy immortal and no time to actually work out what was wrong.

She left her hair in a frizzy cloud and wrapped her arm around the dragon's back, more to take some of the weight off her shoulder than to comfort the creature. Still, Kit chirped softly and buried her nose in Daine's neck. The girl felt a sudden rush of guilt and love, and held her more tightly for a second.

"I'm sorry, Kit." She murmured, nuzzling her nose into the creature's soft scales. "Of course you can stay there, if you want to."

Kitten sighed and closed her eyes. Whatever she wanted to say, it was clear that she was content simply to cuddle. Daine frowned and shifted the immortal to a more comfortable position. She was absently stroking Kit's soft scales when she left the room, and shook her head in a silent warning to Numair's quizzical look. He shrugged back and held the door open for her with a rueful look. They both knew that they were hopelessly late.

The court room was filled to bursting by the time they arrived. They slipped into the back of the room and found a space beneath one of the older tapestries: a spot which many courtiers avoided due to its habit of shedding stray threads. Nobody noticed them arriving, which made Numair snidely observe that at least no-one would know exactly how late they had been.

"They still know we weren't on time," Daine pointed out. The man shrugged easily and leaned back against the tapestry, treating them both to a shower of slate-blue yarn.

Over the throng of milling people who were coughing and whispering and muttering to one another they could just make out the cool tenor of Duke Baird's voice. He and his healers had been placed in charge of the villagers, who had been left cold and hungry by their nights in the barns. Their hands and feet were bruised and even broken, and some of the younger children had severe coughs which were growing worse in the cool evenings. Baird was asking the court to grant him permission to move the children into the palace. A few of the other healers supported him, admitting that while they were still wary enough to keep the men and women behind the shields, every single one of them seemed to be completely normal.

A few voices rose in anger, and a thin voice rose above the crowd. "If they are normal then they are murderers! You're telling us to let vicious, murderous children into our homes?"

"I'm telling you to show mercy before they die of exposure!" The healer snapped back, his voice carrying through the whole room. "They're children! Four, five years old… some are even younger than that! You cannot possibly believe…"

"Their parents are criminals, and so are they." The voice replied shrilly. "They learn it from their mothers' breasts."

"Must we humour this ridiculous nonsense?" Baird demanded, turning to address the king directly. Jon made a calming gesture with his hand and raised his head imperiously. Beckoning to the crowd, he waited for the outspoken noble to step forward.

"It's the father of the page who was killed," Numair whispered into Daine's ear. She craned her head to see better, but she didn't recognise the man or his pale, waxen wife as they stepped forward. Their servants' colours and the rich fur of their clothes told her that they must be wealthy lords from the north, but she knew they would have very little power over Jon's decision. She felt deeply sorry for them, and held Kit a little tighter as she watched them step forward. The woman was weeping, a steady flow of tears that seemed like it must have begun the instant their son was killed, and would not stop until they found some peace.

"Lord and Lady Tiyall." Jon bowed his head down respectfully, and his voice was rich was sympathy. "I am sorry for your loss. The whole of Corus mourns for you, and regrets the loss of another fine young man in a time of such bitter trial."

"He should not have died." Lord Tiyall nearly shouted it, his voice accusing. Jon's eyes sharpened but his voice remained calm.

"I might say the same of any of the people who have been slaughtered since the barrier fell." He waved his hand towards the milling people, and many of them refused to meet his eyes. A shadow fell over the king's face, and he shook his head. "I do not think a single family has been untouched, and I doubt a single father here would be able to tell you why their child was taken. It is the great tragedy of our age: that so many have died for so senseless a reason."

"I can tell you why. Those people killed him." The man spat through gritted teeth. Jon looked him straight in the eye.

"Those people are victims of the immortals. They have felt loss, like you. No infants survived that village. No old men or women have been found, and many of the fighting age men have disappeared. They have no recollection of killing, nor of fighting for their own survival. We must decide their fates, but we cannot pretend that they are malicious killers when we do not fully understand what befell them. That is what we are gathered to discuss, not the execution of innocents."

He turned his bright blue eyes to Duke Baird and his voice became less severe. "Bring the children into the warm, and treat them kindly. Ward the healers' wing until no trace of their ordeal remains, but do not force them to recollect…" he winced and looked away, unable to describe the revulsion of a child remembering the horrors they had committed.

The healer took over smoothly, bowing and gesturing for his healers to gather the children as soon as possible. In the hubbub as they left, Daine and Numair made their way forward, finding a niche that was closer to the dais in case they were needed. Jon noticed them there, and raised his eyebrows at them.

"He looks annoyed." Daine muttered. Numair smiled crookedly and bowed to the king, making the gesture look as apologetic as possible. By the time he had straightened up Jon was looking away, speaking gently to the Lady Tiyall.

After a few minutes of noise, the court settled down again and Jon gestured for the gathered people to hush. They fell into an obstinate silence, and he drew a deep breath. "The main matter before us is this: that a number of immortals have been discovered living in the moat of this castle. These immortals seem to be able to control human minds at whim. They were discovered in a lake beside Nethil Village where they possessed most of the villagers; those who were not possessed were killed by spidren. Presumably the lake immortals attacked first, and the spidren decided to pick off those who were unafflicted.

"The spidren attack was discovered by two of our mages, who investigated the ruins, discovered the possessed villagers, and decided that they should be examined by the experts here in Corus rather than being left to starve in the fields. Which is fair enough." He glanced up at Daine and Numair, and gave them a slight nod. "It is what I would have commanded."

There was a general mumble of voices, and a few people looked over at the two mages who both looked away from their sharp eyes. Jon cleared his throat to regain their attention, and continued.

"After bringing the villagers here they confined them to the barns outside of the city walls. The villagers became aggressive, so a second precaution of a magical barrier was put in place. The death of the child – although tragic – is only due to his breaking through this barrier despite the warnings of others. I cannot place blame on any single person for it, but to prevent similar unpleasantness happening in the future, I am commanding my court mages to design a spell which cannot be thwarted by a child." He scowled a little and shook his head. "That should not have happened."

Daine shrank back a little and caught Numair's hand, balancing Kitten with one arm. His fingers felt cold next to hers, and she squeezed them tightly.

"Finally," Jon was saying, "The immortals possessed Master Salmalin – who I know very well wards his mind against such attacks – and used him to lure Mistress Sarrasri into the moat, where she discovered that they were hiding. It is her assertion that the immortals were trying to communicate with humans, and the horrific consequences of that were…" he frowned slightly, "…an accident. Is that correct, Mistress Sarrasri?"

Daine realised that it was her turn to speak. "That's right," She called out, aware that her voice sounded a little high and nervous with all these fine lords and ladies turning to stare at her. Clearing her throat, which suddenly felt as if it were lined with sand, she blurted out the story which she had practiced so carefully in her head.

"They can't be heard on dry land. It sounds like… well, like pure silence. It's hard to explain, but if you imagine putting your head underwater and listening to the water in your ears, it sounds like… like that." She swallowed and then continued more strongly. "So I dove into the water this morning to talk to them. Before I even asked their names I made them promise to let the villagers go, and not to hurt or possess anyone else."

"A pretty promise," Someone sneered, "How do you know they'll keep it?"

"Never mind that!" Someone else yelled out, "How did they get here? I'm sure there weren't monsters in the moat when I was invited to court!"

Daine found that speaker and met his angry brown gaze. "They came here in the villagers. Inside their minds. They waited with them in the barns until nightfall, and then they rode the mist to the nearest pool of water. If you want them to leave, you'll have to let them break their promise and possess someone else." She shook her head irritably and her voice took on a new fierceness.

"They were frightened! They knew the spidren were nearby and they didn't know how to defend themselves. They told me that a hurrock fell in the water and it struggled and tore six of them to shreds. They had been safe behind the realms and suddenly after hundreds of years they were being killed, and they panicked! They found the villagers and saw these… these shells which were made of mostly water and could walk on dry land, and they tried to beg them for help, but the bats flew away and the people screamed and covered their ears and wouldn't listen. So they got desperate and possessed them, and we brought them here, but even we couldn't understand what the silence meant. The only thing that they could do which we seemed to understand was… was violence. That's what we humans are good at." She said that very bitterly, and the room fell quiet. "They learned it from us. But all the time they were trying to get me to listen, and until I was in the water I couldn't understand a word, even with my magic."

The room fell into a deathly quiet, and then someone hissed, "You brought them here."

"Why are you frightened?" Numair asked, bristling at the threat in the man's voice "She told you that they are harmless."

"And of course you believe her." The man replied in a vicious drawl, looking at their interlinked hands. The mage reddened and opened his mouth to retort, when the whole room burst into scores of arguments and aghast exclamations. The noise rose to a dull roar, and Daine sagged back against the wall against the ongoing tirade.

Some of it was directed at her, which she had been expecting – ever since Kitten's mother had nearly crushed one of the towers, she had been treated as something of a pariah where the immortals were concerned. But it worried her to hear the tone of their voices beginning to change and grow darker. People were still afraid, and angry. The angry ones were demanding that the immortals be removed from the moat, and the frightened ones were insisting that simply moving them wasn't going to be enough. Sooner than she had feared, she heard the first voice beginning to demand that they find some way to kill all the immortals before they could strike again.

"Gods," She breathed, shrinking into the tapestry. "They're really going to kill them. Look at them. Jon won't be able to calm them down."

Numair stood on his toes to see over the seething mob to the dais. Jon was watching the courtiers with a resigned expression, and the man felt his blood boil at the sight. "He's not going to try, Daine. You heard what he said to you. He doesn't believe they're harmless, either."

"His family are here, too." Daine murmured, clutching Kitten so tightly the dragon squeaked. "He's afraid for them."

"They're really not in danger?" Numair looked at her, and Daine felt a surge of anger at the question.

"Didn't you believe me, either?" She demanded. "Gods, Numair!"

He made an odd noise and said, "I've known you to come to a lesson with bite marks still bleeding and scratches on your arms telling me that it was a misunderstanding."

She gaped at him and then set her chin stubbornly and glared up at him. "Fine, I'll prove how dangerous they are. Since I'm the only one who can actually talk to them, I guess I'll have to convince someone I'm telling the truth… even if it's not you."

He groaned and tugged his nose with his fingers. "That's not what I meant, Daine!"

"Oh, was it a misunderstanding?" She retorted with heavy sarcasm. Planting her feet into the ground, she looked him square in the eyes and said in a flat voice, "You'll have to read my mind. Read what I'm thinking, and project it out so all of them can hear it."

"What?" His jaw dropped. Lowering his voice to a hiss, he leaned closer, "That would be illegal, Daine!"

"Oh, don't pretend you don't know how to do it." She huffed, and would have folded her arms if Kitten hadn't been in the way. "I bet you know lots more illegal magic than you let on. I bet it wasn't illegal in Carthak! I refuse to believe that Ozorne…"

"Stop it." He cut her off sharply, and drew a shaking breath. Daine bit her tongue so sharply that she could taste blood, knowing that she had said too much and that only his monumental self-control was stopping him from retorting with a furious outburst. She could see the anger in his eyes, and it took every scrap of her stubbornness to meet his fierce glare and match it with her own indignant outrage.

"Fine." He spat out the one word in a clipped outburst, and snapped a candle off the sconce in the wall beside them. Holding the soft beeswax like a pen, he sketched a rune on the girl's forehead, and crouched down to draw a second one on the floor. He nudged her onto it without a word, and rested his hand on the nape of her neck as he had when they had tried to speak to the dragons in the divine realms. Daine shivered. Back there his hand had felt warm, soothing. Today it shook with anger, and his skin was so cold the hair rose on the back of her neck.

She shook the image of the dragons away and called the right memory into the front of her mind, nodding slightly when she was ready. Numair whispered something under his breath, the words sounding very terse but predictably arcane, and Daine pushed the memory forwards and outwards to fill the vast courtroom.

It began slowly. Hardly anyone noticed, although a few heads turned around looking for the source of the sweet, chiming note which rang through the air. The note faded, and a second one took its place. It fell a minor third below the first, making a softly melancholy sound which blended sweetly into the echo. Then a third note rang out, and the crowd fell silent.

It was music: unspeakably beautiful music, which sang through the air with the sound of a thousand crystal bells. It was the sound of bubbles glittering on the banks of a melt-water stream, and the gentle shimmer of ice slowly ebbing into dew in delicate morning sunlight. It was all of those things, and more – major and minor, modal and odd as it streamed and flowed from melody to harmony and back again, never settling on a single theme or idea before it flitted away. No note seemed to be the same as any other, and yet they were all one voice which raised itself to the heavens and refused to be silenced. The people stood, transfixed, and closed their eyes to exist in a world of that pure sound.

"Stop." Daine whispered. Numair didn't move, and his soft voice was as frozen as the people before them.

"Why?" He whispered back, entranced. Daine shook her head and dragged herself away from his hand, stepping off the wax rune which was casting the spell. The noise vanished abruptly, with even the echoes cut sharply off. A memory, after all, could leave no trace.

Numair started to ask her something, and then frowned and raised a hand to his ear. When he brought his fingertips down and looked at them they were slick with blood. Looking over the girl's shoulder, he saw that other people were touching their ears and frowning in dazed confusion.

"It's still the scream, really." Daine said, her voice soft. "It just sounds like music when you know how to listen."

"That's their… voices?" A voice asked in disbelief. Daine raised her eyes to see Jon looking at her. Blushing, she nodded, realising that once again every person in the room was staring at her.

"Things are so different in their world." She said in the silence. "I don't understand much of it. But if we only believe in the ugly side that appears on dry land, we'll never get to see the beauty underneath."

Everyone turned to look at Jon, who rubbed his ears thoughtfully and then, slowly, raised himself to his feet. "I'll give you one week." He said, looking around the room as if any of the transfixed people would argue with him. "Find out what they want, and why and… and if they prefer to sing or to scream."


	26. Trust

A/N: It has nothing to do with this chapter, but I want to send all my love to every single one of the fearless dragons marching around the world this week. Even the strongest gilded towers will eventually crumble. Keep marching, keep loving, and let your songs reach the ears of the world. Lots of love, from a sister in the UK. Xxxxx – Viv

888

Daine rounded on Numair almost the second that the door shut behind them. The close confines of Numair's rooms gave an illusion of privacy in a place as rife with eavesdroppers as the palace, but for once the girl was angry to lower her voice. Numair had felt the simmering fury growing more pronounced as they left the throne room, but even he hadn't realised just how outraged Daine was until she turned around and he saw the pale set in her trembling chin.

"What is wrong with you?" She demanded shrilly, holding Kit in her arms like some kind of shield against her own fury. When the man looked blank, or perhaps stunned at her outburst, she shook her head and her voice grew very bitter. "I can't believe you thought I was lying."

"Not lying," He replied, his own pride stung when he realised what she was upset about. He tried to calm her down by explaining, with terrible patience: "I just said that sometimes, when it comes to animals, you…"

"I what, Numair? Put my friends in danger because I'm so soft-hearted?" She demanded, planting Kitten onto the ground. The dragon made a rude noise at her words, stalking away with a withering look at Numair. It seemed that a few hours in Daine's arms had made her choose sides, and she hooted derisively at the man. Daine drew a shaking breath and looked up, her eyes shining. "You must know half of the people in the room think I'm actually like that, Numair. The feral nature of a wolf… the morals of a cat…" She shuddered and shook her head, returning to the point of the argument with an effort. "You of all people should back me up."

"Because I know it's not true?" He asked, and when Daine emphatically nodded he smiled humourlessly and leaned back against the table. "I could, but that's not what they'll think. They'll think I'm just agreeing with you because we're sleeping together."

"Well, you made damn sure they wouldn't think that today, didn't you?" She retorted, flushing red with a mixture of embarrassment and hurt betrayal. "You put my honesty into question, but at least all the precious lords and ladies know you're not thinking with your…"

"Don't be such a child." He snapped, finally losing his temper. "There's far more at stake than my pride. You don't see the way they're looking at us, do you? Our whole position here revolves around protecting those people. What do you think will happen if a single one of them starts thinking we're making bad judgements because of this?"

"We already are!" She yelled back. "You argued with me in front of hundreds of people and now none of them believe me! A week won't be long enough for me to convince them of the truth, but one word from you would have been enough! Can't you see that, or do I have to spell it out in stupidly long words to make you understand?"

"You're overreacting." He made himself sound arch on purpose, knowing how much it irritated her. "If you're so certain of everything, why would you need to use me as a buffer?"

"Why do you think?" Daine threw her hands in the air and lowered them, shaking, her voice a choked cry. "Because in their eyes I'm half an animal, and half a peasant, and all a weak, emotional woman. And mostly now _because_ I'm sleeping with you, you absolute idiot! How many of them are asking themselves how much of my reputation has been exaggerated because you wanted to keep me around? And now that you publically questioned my judgement… just because you think you understand what I do better than I do myself… ugh!"

She folded her arms and marched to the window, opening it to let a stream of tepid air into the room. The breeze was nowhere near cool enough to calm her down, as she had hoped. Instead, the slightly stale air reminded her of the closed off reek of the courtroom, as more and more people had argued with Jon's decision. The music had mollified some of them, but most had soon snapped out of their daze and started arguing. They had pressed closer and closer, their hands and arms clumsy in the overwarm room as they jostled against each other and demanded answers to their questions.

It was unlike Daine to feel cowed, but against such an aggressive display of anger and fear she found herself backing against the wall and falling into silence. When the nobles realised that she wasn't going to answer them, they rounded on Numair and started shouting the same questions. At first he had shrugged, or shaken his head, but when they finally irked him into answering he snapped back that he had just as many questions as they did. That was when Daine had started pushing her way through the crowd, with Kit hissing and baring her silver teeth to make the nobles back away.

Her heart had stopped racing from that gauntlet, but even now Daine could feel the sick energy humming under her skin. Staring down into the murky moat, she spoke bitterly, "First I was a child, and I guess I've fair shouted in their faces that I'm a woman, but they still look at you when I'm speaking. I've gone from being your ward to being your mistress and in their eyes you own me as much now as you ever did. And today you acted like they're right. I hated being treated like a child, but now I know how they look at me as a woman I'd almost rather be a wolf."

Numair half wanted to admit that she had a point, and if Daine had told him about any of this when they weren't arguing then he would have remembered the many times when she had struggled against the more overbearing men in the court. They were fortunate that Jon's mind was open to the outstanding qualities of both men and women in his kingdom, but of course his royal opinion could only reach so far. There were very few female politicians or ambassadors, and outside of the Riders the army was free from any female face. Daine had grown up under Thayet and Alanna's sheltering wings. Beyond that shelter, the court was far less kind. He had even heard a rumour that a girl had applied to join the pages, and even Jon was hesitant to openly support her, for fear of causing a public upset.

Daine's status was different, because of her unique magic, and on the whole the sorry mess of politics seemed to ignore her. She rarely spoke about her gender at all, although Numair knew how hurt she was when someone passed over her, or patronised her, outside of the Rider's welcoming ranks. It was why she had given up her skirts so easily, and only belatedly formed her adult habit of keeping a dress safe from inquisitive claws. When they had gone to Dunlath Daine had been relegated to the lower table without a moment's attention from any of the gathered nobles.

At the time, Numair had been grateful for the way the girl could slip past the traitors' sharp eyes. He hadn't thought about whether or not she was offended until long afterwards, when Thayet had been suggesting designs for the clothes Daine was to take to Carthak. The queen had laughingly told Numair that she had never known anyone to have such a strong dislike of pink fabric.

Still…

"You never complained about this before." He said, his voice low and stubborn. Daine looked over her shoulder at him briefly, before sighing and perching herself onto the window ledge. Folding her arms, she waited for him to finish his response with her head tilted infuriatingly to one side. Numair carried on regardless, his voice growing very cold at her feigned nonchalance.

"I don't see why you're blaming me for the way they treated you. They didn't believe you because they were too angry to see straight. They can't scream at the immortals, so you are literally the only target they have. Why are you so surprised by that? They blamed me for the barrier failing, and they blamed Jon for letting Jolyon join the school with those boys. That's all they wanted to do – find an outlet for their fear and anger. If you need to point fingers too then go ahead, Daine. Just don't think for a second that I won't turn them back on you."

"Of course you will! You blame me." She said with heavy emphasis. "You don't believe me."

"Exactly," he said flatly, finally admitting the truth. His voice was rough, pitiless. "You're right. I don't believe you. I think those creatures should be slaughtered before they kill someone else."

She stared at him for a long time, and then laughed shallowly and looked back down at the moat. "Are you that scared of them, Numair?"

He scowled and folded his arms. "They tore through all my warding and used my body like a doll. What do you think?"

"I think they gave it back." She muttered, but the retort lost some of its sting as she looked up at him. For the first time since she had yelled at him, Numair saw the oddly fragile light of fear in her grey eyes. Her voice grew softer. "I know that it will be my fault if anyone else dies. It won't be called an accident the next time. Jon will have to arrest me. Maybe if he argues with those lords enough he might just spare my life, but all of the immortals will be killed."

Numair shook his head and unfolded his arms, freeing a hand to shove a stray strand of his hair back from his eyes. "You can still change your mind." He said in a low, intense voice. "Tell Jon that you made a mistake about the immortals. He'll understand if you say that they lied or tricked you; for a moment after I heard that music even I thought that…" he hesitated and then caught sight of her expression. Sighing, he walked to the fire and started building up a neat pile of kindling amongst the ashes. It was far too humid to need a fire, but he needed something to do rather than pace or start yanking his own hair out. "You're not going to change your mind, are you, Daine?"

He heard her draw a breath to speak, and then she stopped herself and for a long time they both fell into an uncomfortable silence.

"No-one will blame you for my choice." She said, with an air of finality.

"Don't be stupid. My implication has nothing to do with my objections."

"I'm not stupid." The girl replied softly, "I'm trying to be fair to you. I don't know what else to say. You're so certain that you're right and I'm wrong that I don't even know if you're listening."

He glared at her for a brief moment, and then fixed his face into something closer to stubbornness than to attention. Daine rolled her eyes and swung her legs up onto the window seat, hugging her knees to her chest as if they could shield her from his pique. Her words were fierce, but the anger was directed towards the moat, not towards the man she was arguing with. It was that fact and not her scowl that made Numair really start to listen to what she was saying, although he kept poking the fire rather than meeting her eyes.

"It was fair horrible what they did to you." Daine said, and Numair could hardly miss the rough anger in her voice. "I'm not forgiving them for that. I didn't forgive them for anything. You have no idea what I did to make them let you go. They wept, they begged me to let up, but I showed them everything that they had done. All the pictures in my mind went into theirs: the way those corpses looked and smelled and the pain and sorrow of everyone they hurt… all of it. I threw it into their minds like magefire until they screamed. I kept going long after I knew they understood, because I was so angry at them."

Numair looked around sharply, forgetting to dust the ashes from his hands and nearly letting the sleeve of his shirt drift into the fire in his shock. He had only ever known Daine to force images into animal minds when she had been trying to warn them away from some danger. When she had sent the forest animals to relieve the siege at Pirate's Swoop, she had spent almost as much time showing them things which might hurt them as she had giving them orders. So for her to use her magic for something as ruthless as she described was unsettling.

His fingers curled a little against his palms. A small part of his mind was crowing over such an apt punishment for the immortals who had so smugly leeched into human minds. The rest of his mind was in turmoil, still too angry to focus. Above all, he struggled to understand why on earth Daine was willing to risk so much for creatures that she clearly hated as much as he did.

She saw his eyes narrow and smiled thinly, shrugging away his unspoken argument. "When they stopped screaming I told them that if they took one more life – if they spilled one more drop of blood – the mortals would show them even less mercy than I had. I wish I could show you their fear." She picked at a loose splinter on the window frame. "You would believe that. You could taste it in the water, even if you couldn't hear it. Even if you didn't believe in the words they used to plead, to beg for forgiveness, to mourn…" the splinter came loose and she frowned as a bright drop of blood blossomed on her fingertip. The small pain seemed to break through her dark chain of thought, and she drew a deep breath and raised her head.

"I pressed them with my magic until they couldn't even think of a lie without my seeing it, and their story never changed. So now it's simple. I believe them."

Numair stood up and twisted his hands together, suddenly, painfully, aware that he had made a brutal mistake. "Daine…"

The girl lowered her head stubbornly and stood up. Avoiding the man's eyes, she made her way to the door. "You thought I was just being soft hearted? Or too proud to admit I'm wrong?" She asked, her quiet voice unspeakably hurt. "I would never risk everyone's safety on my pride."

"You didn't tell me you'd done any of that." The reply sounded weak even to his ears, but he couldn't help trying to defend himself. He could have faced down her anger without thinking twice, but the genuine pain that ran underneath it made his heart twist.

She laughed without a trace of humour. "No, I guess I didn't. I figured you knew me well enough to work it out for yourself."

In the silence after those few short words, she slipped out of the door and closed it quietly behind her. If she had slammed it then it would have been better, Numair thought, staring at the wooden door as if it had deliberately made a gentle click rather than a loud crash. If she had slammed it then she would have been angry, but she wasn't angry. She was upset, but she would come back. It would be far more painful for her friend to break through his shame than it would have been to simply apologise after a heated argument. They had argued before, so many times that they even knew how long it would take the other person to calm down.

But Numair had rarely seen Daine this hurt before, and it stung that he had been the one to do it – not because he had been angry or careless, but because he had misjudged his friend's nature. She was right; he should have trusted her enough to realise that she would have been scrupulously careful before saying anything to the court. Why on earth would he start underestimating her now?

He remembered the way she had taken his hand in the throne room, and the accusing glares the noblemen had thrown his way. He had been wracked with guilt at his own mistake in making the barrier far too complicated and fallible. He had been thinking about that, and not about the hours Daine had spent with the immortals that morning. He hadn't thought about her strange weariness when she had come home, or how much magic a young woman must have spent to make herself physically tired in just a few hours. Instead, he had thought about the noblemen, and their baleful eyes, and…

… he had accused Daine of letting their relationship affect her judgement. He remembered his words with a shudder. It wasn't Daine who was compromised, it was himself.

He pointed at the fire and whispered a word, watching icy air burn through the flames until they froze and shattered. The sudden blast of cold and the fierce crack of the exploding ice made his hands close into fists. He felt just as frozen, staring at the blood-red ice until it melted into the ashes.


	27. Crowded

The immortals in the moat had short attention spans. Now that they knew they had Daine's attention they were content to meander through topics. The girl wanted to scream with frustration. There was nothing that they had said so far which she could report back to the court, and there was no hint of understanding or remorse about the deaths which they had caused in their desperate cries for help. It had taken Daine less than an hour to grow impatient, realising that all they really needed from her was the reassurance that they weren't about to be attacked. She promised them that no hostile immortals would ever make it past the borders of the forest, and pointed out that most of the violent creatures in the mortal realms didn't like to get their feet wet.

The immortals scanned her thoughts then, seeing the lie in her eyes but not understanding that she had cleverly evaded given them a real answer. Daine pushed her mind away from the glaring eyes of the cossetted human nobles in the castle, and instead gave them a grudging image of sharks, deep sea fish and the slow, coiling limbs of the sleeping kraken. The immortals shivered, the sound singing through the water like chiming glass.

\- They all live in the sea.- Daine told them, sending images of crashing waves and then indicating the still, murky waters around them. – They would drown if they came here. There's not enough salt. -

Relief washed through the creatures, and their shining fins glittered with odd colours. Daine squinted, wondering if the sun was setting and painting the water in those odd hues, but when she swam closer she saw that the fishlike creatures had taken on different shades. It made them look far more ethereal than they had before. Where they had simply looked like grotesque, stubby bodied… well, goldfish, frankly: they now looked a little more like the exotic fish which the Yamani ambassadors kept in crystal boxes in their rooms.

She left them to discuss their newfound safety, feeling like a hypocrite every time one of them thanked her. The immortals war had lasted for years, and they had been hiding in Tortall for all of that time. After centuries of tepid safety in the immortal realms, it must have been horrifying for them. She couldn't bear to tell them about the very real danger which still threatened them. When she dragged herself on to dry land and shook the foul water out of her eyes she bit her lip and looked thoughtfully back into the soft water. The immortals wouldn't be able to prove their own innocence. She would have to do it for them.

She dumped pails of water over herself at the pump, shrugging away the odd looks many of the hostlers and servants in the yard gave her. It was better to be soaked to the skin than covered in slime and whatever else filled that moat. Gods, the whole time she had been in it she had half expected dismembered limbs and clumps of human hair to float to the surface. The risk of cholera had made the servants dredge the channels for endless hours after the sieges of the war were lifted, but there was always the chance that something would slip past their nets. Daine shuddered and filled another bucket.

Rather than going back to her rooms (of course she wasn't avoiding Numair, but…) she decided to visit the healer's wing, to see if Duke Baird needed any help. The villagers had all said that they could remember nothing from the time they had been possessed in their own homes, but Daine had come to know several of them over the slow journey. There were children who had held hands as they walked, even though their minds were trapped behind milky blind eyes. There were adults who had stumbled and caught one another, and old men and women who had silently shared their blankets at night. None of these details had made it as far as the ears of the court – the lords would have jumped on the apparent proof that the villagers knew exactly what they were doing – but it was enough to make Daine want to know how they were recovering.

The healers wing was a nightmare of fevered activity. For every injured villager there seemed to be two healers fussing around. Swarms of soldiers and pages made a seething blockade in the hallways. It was impossible to make any order out of the chaos. The pushing and shoving men and women were bad enough even without the sounds they were making. People were screaming and crying, clawing at the healers and being dragged away by the guards.

With a chill, Daine realised that the soldiers were there to restrain these people. Gods, they were frightened and sick, but whenever they clutched at the healers and begged them to tell them what was going on they were pulled back by armed men.

Daine pressed herself against the wall and tried to find Baird. The man's white hair stood out like a shock among the milling crowd, but as soon as she spotted him he would dart away again, and she knew that if she forced her way into the center of the room she would struggle to find him. Even if she did, it was obvious that there was nothing she could do to help anyone. She would just get in the way.

She was just about to leave when she noticed someone else struggling with the villagers. Unlike the guards, Numair was surrounded by children. One of his hands was raised, holding a spell in place, but it took Daine a second before she understood what he was doing. Most of the boys and girls were pressing their hands and noses to an invisible wall which kept them safely away from the crush of the crowd, but some of the older ones were talking animatedly to the man. He was replying to them with a calm expression on his face, and Daine didn't doubt that his words were just as soothing. Some of the children had frightened tears streaming down their cheeks, but they stood quietly and waited rather than screaming at what was happening to their parents.

Daine watched the scene for a minute or two, and then came to a decision. Turning on her heel, she pushed her way out of the room to made her way towards the royal quarters. She had barely made it out of the chaos of the healer's wing before she hit another crowd – this time, angry rather than frightened. The girl realised her mistake too late: these were the angry courtiers who had swamped the audience hall that morning. They clearly weren't happy with the king's command to wait for their answers; looking at the fury on their faces, Daine wondered if the terrified villagers knew what was waiting for them.

A group of soldiers were guarding the corridor, their faces grim but flushed with effort as they blocked flailing hands, pushed back at the crowd, and repeated their orders. They couldn't manhandle these people in the same way their comrades were dealing with the villagers. Cries of "Get your hands off me!" were as common as the shouts for answers and revenge. Daine shuddered at the thought of fighting her way through that mob, but it would be just as bad to go back the way she had come. At least this way, she wouldn't have to risk getting into another argument with Numair (although she already suspected that she would regret telling herself that excuse).

Taking a deep breath, she made her way past the guards, who weren't interested in someone going the wrong way, and edged her way along the wall. When they realised the girl's clothes were damp, most of the nobles flinched away. They smelled of perfume and wine, and as she made her way into the thickest part of the crowd Daine had to hold her breath from the stench. Some of them must have been drinking all day, and the stink of alcohol was stale and cloying among the heat of greasy skin.

She had almost cleared the crowd when something caught her sleeve and yanked her backwards. Yelping, she fell backwards and, for a terrifying few seconds, looked up at the crush of bodies from the floor as clumsy feet crushed her sleeves and hair against the tiles. Then, with a dizzy, violent suddenness, she was pulled upright by her shoulder and shoved against the wall. She heard the tearing of fabric and knew that the crowd were still trampling her tunic underfoot. Closing her eyes, she offered a fervent prayer to the goddess that it was fabric and not bone which they were so oblivious to.

"It's you." A voice growled, and she opened her eyes to see a stranger's bloodshot face looming over her. Her heart thudded in shock, and for a second Daine could only stare back at him. She thought she could feel his sweat staining her shoulder where he still gripped her, until her panicked thoughts told her she was still wet from the moat. Catching her breath, she forced her eyes shut and then opened them again, telling herself to stay calm. The man glared at her as she opened her mouth and closed it, as wordless as one of her…creatures.

"Wildmage." He sneered, and shook her by the shoulder. A string of drool hung from his lower lip, and his words were slurred. "You going to tell your frien's about us? Let them gloat?" He shook his head manically and leaned closer, his eyes bulbous. "Le' them laugh at us?"

"You want to let me go." She said, trying to keep her voice calm. He didn't react, and she had to repeat the words, almost shouting them this time, before he heard her over the screaming crowd. "Let me go!"

"No!" He howled, and shook her again so violently that her head cracked against the wall. She cried out in pain and raised her hand to her head, feeling the raised welt throbbing under her fingers. She regretted the instinctive movement immediately, because she knew she had shown the man a weakness. He was too drunk to know that she could hurt him; he only saw a young woman, and now he knew that she was vulnerable. His hand tightened on her shoulder, and Daine saw his anger and arrogance as if she were a child again, and he was one of the bullies who had tormented her into tears. She ought to be stronger, she knew, but her breath caught in her throat and she couldn't catch her breath.

"Let me go." She whispered, and then again, over and over like a mantra: "You need to let me go."

"We should have you hanged, traitor." The man leaned closer. "Or burned, or drowned. Choosing those shit-stained immortal afterbirths over your own kind. You're disgusting." The spittle on his lip dripped lower, and he was so close that Daine could feel the drunken heat rising from his skin and pressing against her body. The crowd surged, and he was touching her, and his eyes were full of hatred. "A disgusting, traitor whore."

Daine gasped in a sharp breath and twisted in his arms. For a heartbeat he fought back, clutching at her until he either had to let go or break both his wrists. As soon as she felt his grip weaken, Daine threw herself off balance and kicked until her knee met flesh. The man howled in pain and his fingers were suddenly gone, and she ducked down under his flailing arms to dive into the crowd. This time she didn't care if she was going towards the exit or even to Chaos, as long as she was away from the sound, the sight, the stench of him. And then there was light, and she could move and breathe, and she stumbled and fell sprawling into the clear space of the corridor behind the crowd. They barely noticed her scrambling to her feet and running as fast as she could around corners and through doorways. Daine ran until she was sure that the drunken lord wouldn't be able to find her.

"Gods!" She cursed out loud, and buried her head in her hands. "What on earth is going on? Everyone is going mad!"

One thing was sure, she thought as she rubbed her aching head with shaking fingers. It would be stupid to stay in the palace. Most of the nobles would be too hungover to remember their rage tomorrow, but the hatred in her attacker's eyes had been all too real. She shuddered again at the memory and scrubbed her face with her palms, wishing she could scratch the smell of the man out of her nostrils. Her whole body itched with loathing. And if it was dangerous for her to stay here, how much worse would it be for the villagers? When this red blooded fury turned into vicious, calculated revenge, even Jonathan wouldn't be able to protect them.

Her feet started moving without conscious thought, and before she knew it she had reached the royal apartments. Not caring that her clothes were torn and filthy, she knocked on the door and waited for the page to let her in. The room was cool and calm, apart from the appalled expression on Jon's face when he stood up to greet her.

"What on earth…?"

"You have to give the village to Jolyon." Daine said, without any preamble. Jonathan took an actual step back, before his face split into a perplexed grimace.

"Daine, what…?"

"I'm not joking." The girl planted her hands on her hips, and then decided it was better to look like she wasn't here to pick a fight. Gods knew she already looked like she had lost. "This will solve all of our problems. Well, most of them. And I know I can fix everything else if you do this."

Jon leaned back, his incredulous look fading to something challenging. "Go on."

Daine took a deep breath. "If you give the land to Jolyon, then all of the villagers who lived there will fall under his command. If he told them to leave the castle they'd have to obey, even if all those lords and ladies threaten them every step of the way. They'd have to appeal to you to take back his order, and by the time they've brought their petitions it'll be too late to stop them. Once the villagers are gone, most of the rumours and scaremongering will go, too. Then we only have to worry about the immortals in the moat, not wondering who's going to be first for a public lynching and… and…." She shuddered and wrapped her arms around herself, sternly telling herself that she was simply cold from the moat water. To his credit, the king didn't pry into her sudden silence, but handed her his cloak without a word and guided her closer to the fire.

"I understand." To Daine's relief Jon was beaming widely. He grasped her hand warmly for a moment before his perplexed look came back. "It's a fantastic idea, only… why should I give the village to Jolyon?" Leaning forward a little, he lowered his voice. "Why not ask me to give it to you?"

"Me?" She gasped, and shook her head. "I don't want it!"

"But I would give it to you without a second's thought!" He replied with the same amount of energy. "Whereas, that boy…"

"He's been twisted up in this mess from the start, and we owe him." Daine interrupted, rattling off her list of reasons with her fingers raised, counting them off. "He's a local to the area, and he's not afraid of hard work. He's made no friends in the castle and we can hardly abandon him anywhere else. We know we can trust him."

Jonathan nodded slowly. "He's been terrified to leave our rooms since it happened. And I don't blame him. You'd have to be a fool to bait that lot." At that, he looked pointedly at Daine's torn tunic. She coloured and drew the cloak more snugly around herself so that he couldn't see what the mob had done. Taking the hint, Jon walked over to the fireplace and made a show of looking into the flames.

"He starts every word he says with some kind of apology, as if he thinks we'll turn on him if he stops. He's desperate to find a way to make amends for what he's done." He frowned severely then and glanced towards the small door which lead to his family's rooms. "If the other boys who were responsible felt half as contrite, I'd hold out far more hope for the future of my kingdom than… than if Alanna brought me another Dominion Jewel. But they all turned on Jolyon, and the poor lad doesn't know any better than to agree with his… betters. My only worry is that he'd make the same mistake again."

Daine looked uncomfortable for a moment. She found it impossible to shake off the feeling of guilt at not asking after the boy sooner. After all, she had been the one who had brought him to Corus. She made up her mind to apologise to him the moment she saw him. She hadn't meant to leave him alone in such a hornet's nest.

Still, her voice was tart, concealing her feelings with a breezy wave of the hand. "I agree that he is an idiot sometimes… but… but we can keep an eye on him. You need to tell the nobles that someone is being vigilant, but as soon as the villagers think they're being watched they'll resent it. You could give the land to me, but they think I… well, I'd stand out like a sore thumb. They're all arguing amongst themselves and fixing to riot. A child's not a threat."

Jon regarded her for a long moment, and then sighed. "Usually I only give crown land to nobles, to settle border disputes or to entrust it to people who will manage it better than its serfs. I've only ever gifted it to people when they're ennobled."

"He's not a noble." Daine said, looking crestfallen. "I knew it was a daft idea. I guess I just hoped you'd be able to... it's not a big village."

Jon scratched his chin thoughtfully and sat down at his desk, pulling a sheaf of paper towards him. He read through it quickly, and then scowled and rooted through a chest of papers for another, much older book. A small smile crossed his face, and Daine waited patiently for him to finish reading. She was used to this kind of waiting. Jon carried the book back to the desk and dusted a piece of expensive looking vellum. As he mended a pen, he spoke aloud.

"There's an old kind of tenure called serjeanty. I can endow any land upon any person, even if they are not ennobled. It's not hereditary, it's simply allocating a certain piece of land to a person's control in exchange for some favour which they need the land to carry out." He smiled humourlessly at his pen and picked up a fresh one, making sure not to split this one as he spoke. "My ancestors used it to give bandit tribes legitimacy… and then immediately demanded that they fight in their armies to repay the debt."

"Jolyon's debt would be to help the villagers." Daine said, thinking her way past all of the complicated legal nonsense to the heart of the matter. "By the time the village is rebuilt and the farms are all producing tithes…."

"…he will have been gone long enough that most people will have stopped blaming him for those boy's deaths." Jon finished, his voice dark and serious. The girl looked up at him in surprise. She hadn't thought her plan would be that easy to work out, but then, Jon always had to think several steps ahead. The king checked the document he had been scrawling, and then started melting wax for his seal. In a conversational tone, he said, "When I sign this all of the villagers will be under Jolyon's command. I'll get Thayet to pack him some clothes and sneak him out of our rooms. I assume you'll all be leaving tonight? Before sunrise?"

"I… yes." Daine shook her head in dazed wonder. Shaking off the stunned feeling, she smiled wanly and added, "I guess I expected you to take a day to think about it."

"Don't look too relieved." The man frowned a little. "I expect you back here within the week. You still need to negotiate with those… fish."

"We really do need to think of a name for them." Daine tried to keep her voice light as she took the paper and backed towards the door. Jon stopped her with a warning look.

"You also need to remember that when I order you to stay in Corus, I mean it. I took that decision about as seriously as I agreed to your plan tonight, Daine."

"Yes, you were thinking about the promise you made to Lord Sylotol." She replied in a tart voice. Tipping her head to one side, she made sure he could see the frustration that fact made her feel. After the last few hours, everything irritated her. She felt far beyond her ability to feign ignorance. "Are you finally going to tell me what on earth is going on? I'm going fair mad trying to guess why everyone has been lying to me."

He reddened and looked away, shuffling through his papers as if he were suddenly busy. His voice grew vague as he deflected her question. "In ancient legends, they call sea monsters Sirens."

"Sirens." She echoed in a voice that was thick with sarcasm. Her voice rose to almost hysterical laughter. "Gods, you're just as bad as Numair! You'd give me a whole village, but you won't tell me one lousy secret?" Getting no response, she stalked out and made sure the mahogany door slammed loudly behind her.


	28. The Lie

Two hours before daybreak, the last of the straggling villagers had cleared the horizon beyond the castle grounds. There was no collective sigh of relief, but Daine, Numair and Duke Baird all silently offered up a grateful prayer to their own gods. Jolyon was too busy scowling and yawning to care why all of the Corus guardsmen had decided to all take their night off at the same time, and the villagers were taking the excursion with the same bad grace which they had felt since they had woken up.

When the sun began to rise their grumbling increased in volume, but there was less actual anger behind it. The men and woman who had been bewitched had asked enough questions in the healer's wing to satisfy their curiosity about how they had fallen asleep in their own beds, and woken up in a locked stable with blood on their hands and corpses on the ground. Of course, curiosity was not the first thing that had struck them, and many of them walked with their hands clutched around themselves, staring at the ground or weeping.

Duke Baird rode up and down the line on a white mountain pony which was nearly as ancient and cantankerous as he was. He listened carefully to each villager's complaint, treated blisters and glared at attention seekers for hours until the pony decided it had done enough, lifted its tail, emptied its bowels in the path of a particularly irritating whiner and trotted nearly to the front of the line. The healer smiled ruefully at Numair and accepted a flask of lukewarm tea after he had dismounted.

"Do you want me to take over?" The other man asked. Baird hid a smile and shook his head.

"The main complaint is that they're still frightened. They need to be listened to, not glared at."

"I'm not glaring!" Numair looked amazed. The healer raised an eyebrow, and Numair relented a little. "Did your wife ever say, 'We can argue later' to you? That's all I've had from Daine since yesterday lunchtime. 'We can argue later, right now we have work to do.'"

"I'd be trembling in my boots." Duke Baird looked more amused than worried. "She's got her priorities the right way round."

"I am, and I know." The man said, rather gloomily. "I'm definitely not glaring. I'm trying to work out what she's planning to argue about 'later'."

"Which thing do you feel the most guilty about?" The man asked, rather lightly. At the mage's sharp look, he shrugged and smothered a yawn. "You're not angry at her, so clearly you feel like she has a right to be angry with you. Whatever you've done that's making you so guilty, apologise for it. Most people forget the smaller things after that."

"She doesn't know anything about… that." Numair tugged at his nose and glanced back along the line of people to where Daine was walking beside Jolyon. Her hands were moving rather emphatically as she explained her plan to him. By the frustrated expression on her face, it was obviously not the first time she had tried to explain. "I'd have to tell her I've kept it from her, apologise for keeping it secret, tell her everything, then apologise for telling her about it, apologise for waiting until _now_ to tell her about it… and…"

"That's definitely the one to tell her." Baird interrupted him, wincing. "If you take half as long telling the story as you do making up excuses about it, she'll die of old age before she gets a chance to argue."

Numair closed his mouth with a snap and rubbed at his eyes. "Bury me in a nice, fancy crypt. None of that gloomy marble nonsense." He muttered, and then tugged his horse's head around and headed back along the line.

Daine looked up distractedly when he came closer, and for a second he couldn't read her expression until she raised her voice lightly. "Have you met Jolyon's new friend?"

"The bat?" The man guessed, and relaxed when both of them grinned and nodded.

"Daine says I can teach him to carry messages." Jolyon burst out excitedly.

"Her, not him." She shook her head reprovingly and stroked the creature's soft back with a smile. The bat squeaked and burrowed its claws deeper into her sleeve to nestle closer. Jolyon scowled at his mistake and held out his hands for the animal.

"I'm going to train her to take messages at night, quiet like, when all the bad people are sleeping." His voice was rich with determination. "No-one's trained a bat before, but I will."

"Have you told Jolyon that he's been made into a tithing lord?" Numair asked in a low voice. Daine laughed and nodded, looking affectionately at the boy who ran back into the crowd to show some of the other children his clever comrade.

"He knows, but this is more exciting. I don't think the rest of it has sunk in, yet. But he's happy."

"So he's talking to you again? I thought he hated us."

She gave him a sharp look. "That's right. I apologised and he apologised and we forgave each other."

"It's no wonder, since you also gave him a village." Numair couldn't stop himself from bristling at her mulish tone, knowing that if he actually called her out on her barbed double meaning she would stubbornly deny it. For once, though, his friend's temper flared as quickly as his own, and she planted her hands on her hips and stopped dead in her tracks.

"I apologised before I told him anything else. If people could just throw money at their idiotic mistakes I figure you'd fair ruin yourself wrapping me in silks rather than swaddling me in cotton." She snapped, and then shook her head in astonishment. "You don't really believe I bribed him. Why are you making everything so complicated? I just told you that all you need to do is apologise to me and I'll forgive you, but… but you'd rather start arguing about the ethics of… of… what on earth are we even arguing about?"

"I accused you of being less than altruistic." He said, but he couldn't stop smiling hearing the odd note of laughter in her voice, under the anger. It was good to hear it again, even if she was shouting at him. She smiled crookedly back and her shoulders relaxed.

"Well then, since I don't know what that word even means, I have no choice except to tell you you're an insufferable know-it-all."

"I'm sorry." He said abruptly, and then shook his head and waved a hand meaninglessly. "Not for being a know-it-all, Daine, but for…"

"Alright." She interrupted him flatly, and started walking again. "I'd already forgiven you for that."

He choked on his words and caught up with her. "Then what on earth was all that pantomime for?"

"I forgave you for being an ass. I was still angry at you for not seeming the least bit sorry for it." She shrugged and looked at her feet. "I know we're always going to fight. That's fine, we always have. But we were working, and you were acting as if nothing mattered any more except your idiotic pride. I don't want to argue strategy with you as a man, I want to argue with you as a comrade. At least then we have a chance of actually getting something done rather than just hurting each other's precious feelings."

Feeling scolded into silence, Numair fell into step beside her. It was like Baird had told him: he knew she had a right to be angry, and so he didn't balk at her claiming the last word.

"This is making me wretched." He said quietly, and then realised with horror that he'd spoken aloud. Daine froze.

"Do you want to… stop?" She asked, her voice almost inaudible. Numair laughed at that, surprised at the sound even as he made it.

"I spent months trying to stop myself from falling in love with you, Daine. I was just as tortured by that, believe me. This isn't the kind of thing we can just stop doing just by… by moving back into our own rooms."

"Then, are you sorry we started?" The girl's voice was even softer, and she couldn't meet his eyes. Stopping him from making a quick, dismissive reply, she added in a stronger tone: "You've been acting so odd since we got back. We're already fighting, so you might as well tell me and get it over with. I deserve to know the truth. Is it because of whatever Alanna was worried about?"

The man's voice was reluctant, but he finally admitted it. Daine laughed harshly and started walking again. Her words came out quick and furious, and she glared at the road as though she couldn't stand to look at him.

"It must be a dreadful secret, if it means more to you than I do." She said bitterly. "I wish I'd known about it before. I thought you were just being chivalrous, not… not a liar."

"I told myself you didn't want to know. I mean, I know you asked Jonathan." Numair said evasively, "But you didn't ask Alanna. Why not? You know that she's been dying to tell you."

"Is everything I do a puzzle for you?" She retorted, a little more sharply than she had meant. The man shrugged and looked sidelong at her.

"I have this one figured out. You know Alanna would jump at the chance to tell you, but you know I'm the one who asked them to keep it secret. You want to hear it from me. You don't want to hear what the secret is, you just want me to apologise for keeping it from you."

Daine's mouth dropped open, and she had to fake stumbling on the road to regain her composure. She almost hated him for working it out, when it had taken her so long to even convince herself of why she felt so hurt over this whole business.

She hadn't cared about why Alanna was angry, because it was obviously over something that had already happened, and so she couldn't do anything to change it. She also hadn't minded finding out that her friends had made plans for her without asking, as it felt exactly the same as every move between castles or encampments which they had sent her on over the years. But she had minded Numair keeping it secret from her.

She had found out about his lies exactly when she should have trusted him the most, and finding out that he was hiding something from her made her wonder what else he wasn't telling her. After their long weeks of arguing and flirting and the endless discussions about their life together, it seemed callous beyond belief of him to lie. The secret was about her, so what right did he have to keep it from her? Did he think that he would make better decisions than she could, about her own life?

"I wasn't about to beg you for the answer." She said coldly. "No-one should ever have to do that, and I'm not about to start."

"Gods! Turn into a hen if you're so determined to peck at me!"

She folded her arms and glared at him until he sighed and relented. Picking up a stone from the road, he span it between his fingers and watched it disappear and reappear into the air.

"You have a dowry." He said.

Daine actually stopped in her tracks and burst out laughing in utter disbelief. "A… a what?"

"It's true. It was Thayet's idea, and Alanna, Jon, Kaddar and a few others helped." He flicked the stone into the trees and bent to pick up another one. His voice was flat. "I didn't."

"You… didn't?" Daine's mind was still reeling with the idea of having a dowry in the first place, and she struggled to keep up. "Did they keep it secret from you, too?"

"Oh, no." He looked surprised and shook his head. "No, I knew about it from the start. I told them I thought it was a bad idea, and that they should be ashamed of themselves, and then…" He sighed and kicked at the dirt. "…my usual tact and delicacy failed me somewhat, and Alanna has yet to forgive me."

"But they were doing something nice!" Daine exclaimed, looking bewildered. "What on earth is wrong with that?"

Numair reddened and tried to explain.

The idea had come from Thayet, but she hadn't really planned anything. One night, after the children had been tucked safely into their beds, she had been tidying away their toys when the maid had asked her to stop. It made her uncomfortable, the goodly woman explained with an embarrassed frown, for the queen of Tortall to be doing chores like a common housewife.

"I don't mind," The queen nearly laughed at the notion of being idle, and then explained, "They won't be children forever. I like being a mother, and that definitely involves a lot of tidying up!"

The maid rubbed at her nose thoughtfully and then smiled. "I know that well enough. Mine are all grown up and married. It happens before you know it!"

Thayet felt rather wistful when she thought on this, and for the next few days she watched her children with a closer eye, thinking seriously about the day when they would marry and leave her side. As royal children they would be part of an intense political game long before they came of age. She remembered her own childhood and shuddered. No, it was her task as a mother to make sure that her children never suffered in the way that her own family had.

Perhaps it was because of all the nonsense in Carthak, but that autumn Thayet felt especially protective towards Daine. Her concerns about her own children cast a pale shadow which haunted every interaction she had with the young woman, who hadn't even had the money to pay for the handful of dresses she had taken to Ozorne's court. What kind of a marriage would she end up in, Thayet wondered, and the idle thought turned into a genuine problem which annoyed her like a loose tooth. Daine had already been mixed up in politics far too often, and that had been as a child. Now she was growing infamous in her own right, as a mage. She was famous in stories which men told to each other over glasses as ale. People stared at her when she walked through the streets, and her surly replies didn't help her to appear any less mysterious.

The queen could also see that the girl was grudgingly settling into a stubborn kind of beauty. Daine was more likely to scowl at compliments than accept them, but she had begun noticing her own looks. She had started tying her hair back with cloth bands which matched her tunics rather than grimy strips of rag, and she would wince at her reflection after a morning battling the horses.

It was only a matter of time before men started noticing the same small changes in her, and then there would be problems. Daine was shy around strangers, worried about her country upbringing embarrassing her, and it made her appear biddable and obliging in a way that many a swain would love to take advantage of. There were only so many futures for poor, title-less women in the life of a swarming court, and most of them did not end well.

Thayet barely realised she was speaking aloud until she had asked Jon if he thought they should give Daine some land. He raised his eyebrows at her, and looked amused rather than intrigued.

"Where? And why? She'd never go there. The only time she leaves Corus is when the Riders are away, and then she stays with Numair."

"For her lessons." Thayet pointed out. "That won't last forever. Sooner or later even Numair will have to admit he has nothing left to teach her."

"And the alternative is for her to oversee the villages from some draughty bailey and worry about tithing?" Jon shook his head. "She's not a landowner, Thayet. She'd be miserable on her own and she'd be too stubborn to admit she needs to delegate."

"Oh, you're no help." The woman said crossly. "I didn't mean we should give her a job. I meant we should reward her for all she's done for us. You gave Numair that tower after he invented that anti-balding spell, for Mithros' sake!"

"The tower was falling down." The king sounded aloof. "I needed an excuse to get rid of it, and he was the first person who walked through the door… with that spell, which I absolutely didn't need to use."

Thayet laughed and ruffled his hair. "Don't you have another ruin somewhere which she can fill with strays? I want her to have something."

"Daine has everything she needs." Jon said. "She's well paid for her work, and if she needs anything else she knows she just has to ask us. Alright, she's too proud to do that half of the time, but she knows she always has a home here."

"With us." Thayet said quite emphatically. "She has a home with us. She has to ask us for lodgings or dresses, just like a dog begging for treats. What I want is for her to have her own home. I've lived through the… the humiliation of gratitude. When I first came to this country it was with my hands held open and loathing in my own heart. I could sell my jewels for coin, but to sleep safely at night… to walk into the life I had lost… I had to rely on other people's goodness. I loved you all for it, but I wept myself to sleep at night thinking that I had nothing of my own to look forward to."

Jon caught her hand between his own and kissed her fingertips, bowing his head like a courtier. "I knew that." He said quietly. "Your dignity was profound. Even before I loved you, I wished I possessed a tenth of your courage."

She blushed and laughed shortly. "Yes, well, I wished I possessed a hundredth of your kingdom and one or two of those hot-tempered hunters you bred in your stables. But I suppose courage is well enough. Should I tell Daine to marry herself a handsome prince, then?"

"Kaddar was…" Jon started, and then stopped short and looked guilty when Thayet's eyebrows flew upwards. "Gods, don't look at me like that, Thayet. He sent a courier to Tortall last week, with two letters. One message was for me, and the other one was for Daine. Since the situation is so precarious my advisors insisted that we read both. He was just asking if she was recovered from… from Carthak. That idiot Sambek decided that something must have happened between them."

"There's nothing more romantic than a kidnapping." Thayet said, rolling her eyes. "When would they have sweet-talked each other – when she was tearing down the palace?"

Jon laughed and nodded. "Exactly. But a few of the other lords jumped onto the idea, and suddenly this girl who they've been complaining about for the last three years became some political pawn they all wanted to play with. If a Gallan born, Tortallan mage tied herself to the crown of Carthak, what would we gain?"

"Mother Flame would light candles in the dark god's realms before that happened." The woman muttered, looking annoyed. Jon shrugged and moved easily away from the subject.

"They dropped the idea quite quickly, but now it's in their heads they keep suggesting other matches for our wildmage."

"She's sixteen." Thayet scowled, and her usually song-like voice grew harsh. "You wouldn't even let her run a bailey. How dare you try to arrange a marriage for her?"

"Mithros' spear! I didn't!" He threw up his hands in surrender. "I'm just saying that other people in the court are… are starting to ask questions!"

Thayet started to retort, and then caught herself and sighed. "I might as well admit that I've been wondering the same thing. Not… not all the political nonsense, but… Daine doesn't have any family, and sooner or later one of us needs to talk to her about her future. The problem is that I've already tried, and it's hopeless. She wants to stay where she is, work at the same job, and live in her poky room near the stables until she dies."

"No-one is actively trying to kill her here." Jon said, "So I can see the appeal."

Thayet was about to tell him off for making jokes when she realised that he was serious. She sighed. It was true: whenever Daine went away from the city, even if it was just to visit Alanna or to speak to her wolf pack, she ended up having to fight for her life. It would have been ludicrous if it had happened to anyone else, but because of her bizarre magic and her odd relationship with the immortals, most of her friends seemed to take it for granted. Daine took it in her stride, for the most part. Recently, though, Thayet had noticed that the girl seemed a little quieter.

Kaddar's letter worried her more than anything else; the young man didn't have a reputation for being particularly sympathetic. If he was worried enough about Daine to write to her then he must have witnessed something terrible in Carthak. Thayet didn't dare to pry into what had truly happened in those golden rooms. Numair had been furious in his reports, and Alanna had been surly and pert, but Daine had barely spoken two words about it since she had gotten back.

"There's a fine line between feeling safe and hiding." Jon said, echoing the woman's thoughts. "We can't let things stay the way they are, even if that's what Daine wants."

"But we might show her other things that she might want, instead." Thayet smiled suddenly, her pensive mood falling away. "I have an idea!"

They discussed the plan that night until the bones of it had fallen into shape, and then over the next few days they began to share it with their friends: they would give Daine enough money and clothes to join the summer court at Castle Greene. For the three months that she was there, they would insist that she be treated the same way as any other visiting noblewoman. She would be waited on, pampered, danced with and flirted with until she was so bored that (please Mithros) she would either find a like-minded friend to share her pain with, or else escape in a creative enough way that at least she would have fun.

The real plan, though, was to introduce her to people outside of the Corus court. The southern lords were much more grounded than their northern counterparts. Where the capital city attracted the very rich and lazy, Castle Greene was surrounded by the flat bandit country and warmer, less fertile fields which shared a shore with Carthak. The men and women of those lands were used to fighting, working hard and sharing boisterous stories in the evenings. The only real difference between them and the Riders was that they did their drinking wearing silks, not leather armour. Daine would never meet a Corus knight or lord who could see past her upbringing or reputation, but the southerners would respect her courage and stubbornness. If she was likely to meet someone to share her life with, it would probably be there.

After they had discussed all of that, Thayet cooly added that they should give Daine a dowry. Out of everyone who was in on the plan, the only person who spoke out against it was Numair. He balked and shook his head. By all means, he said, give Daine a holiday. Let her meet new people and wear pretty dresses if she wanted to (he doubted it, but they were welcome to try…). But, he repeated, do not give her a dowry.

They all stared at him in surprise, and it was Thayet who finally found her voice and asked him why they shouldn't give Daine such a gift.

"It's not a gift," He said, tugging at his nose in the way he only did when he was thinking rapidly. "Don't you see what you're doing? Send her away if you want to, but don't send her off into the arms of the first idiot gambler who finds out that she has a bag of coins in her marriage bed. God!" He scrubbed his face with his hand at that, as if he wanted to clean away the disgusting thought. "How would she meet anybody worthy of her with all of you looking over her shoulders, showering her with gold? You know how naïve she is. She wouldn't have the slightest idea if someone was interested in her mind, her heart, her fortune, her body…" He shook his head emphatically. "Don't give her a dowry. Let her go as a Rider or as a courier, for Shakith's sake."

"So if we send her there penniless, young men won't start looking at her body?" Alanna asked sarcastically.

Thayet cut across her with a warning glance. "The money is about politics, Numair, nothing else. If she does meet somebody, their family would have one less objection to the match. It shouldn't change her status."

"Her status! She grubs in the dirt to find insects for her pet birds! That's who she is. You're sending her as someone who has political standing with the king, a close friendship with the queen, and money!" He returned sharply. "I'm sure she'll meet lots of sincere suitors with that tempting combination."

"Women can be quite adaptable." Thayet's voice turned cool. Alanna hid a laugh, and Numair bristled.

"I'm not criticising Daine. I'm saying she deserves to find someone in her own way. If she's dressed up and you're waving gold under noblemen's noses then she'll be humiliated. They'll all be able to see that she's not used to acting that way. They'll laugh at her."

"She has more chance with our plan than she does staying here, with you glaring at every boy she speaks to at banquets." Alanna said in a low, but audible, monotone. When she saw the man's eyes narrow at her, she smirked and waved a hand around the room. "We've all seen you doing it. George told me that once he saw you dragging a young squire away by his ear. If I remember it right, it was just after the poor boy sneaked away with Daine behind the rope weaver's sheds, and right before you were attacked by… how many bats was it, Numair?"

"At least I'm trying to protect her."

"And why are you doing that? She's a young woman. Let her have some fun. If she falls asleep in her lessons you can tell her off, but what keeps her up all night is none of your business."

"Daine doesn't act like that." He said icily.

"Well, you do." Alanna raised an eyebrow at him. "Maybe the mages at Castle Greene will set a better example. At the moment, the only thing you're teaching her is how to fool around."

Numair replied with a very rude word, and stalked out when Alanna started laughing and Thayet looked furiously from one to the other. It was the last he had heard about the plan for a long time.

Numair told Daine most of this, apologising when he repeated his glib opinions about her naivety and waving a hand indifferently after Alanna's snide comments about his own colourful past. Daine listened to the whole story with wide eyes and an expression of utter bewilderment, but when he tried to shrug off those last few details she looked away.

"It bothers you, doesn't it?" She said, knowing he was only pretending to be blasé to hide his own feelings. When he refused to answer her question, she pressed him again. "Alanna didn't tell me any of that. She just asked me if you'd seduced me. Even though I told her you hadn't, she still blames you because… why? Because I never had the chance to meet anyone else?"

"It's more than that. The dowry was supposed to take you away from all of this." He gestured to the stumbling villagers around them. "Like you said, this shouldn't be normal. With a good marriage, you could have a home and a family and a long, safe life. Your friends and connections would have brought you scores of offers, and with the money Thayet set aside you'd be courted by lords and dukes, not by tithe farmers or hostlers."

"I like hostlers." She said crossly. "What's wrong with hostlers?"

"Oh, nothing. It's just an example." Numair looked sidelong at her and risked a smile, feeling genuinely amused by the expression on her face. "I'm sure if you wanted to marry one Alanna wouldn't object."

"Then why try to pair me off with some stuck up lord?" Daine shook her head. "I think they must have been playing a trick on you, Numair. None of this makes any sense."

He paused, chose his words carefully, and tried to explain as gently as possible. "I think they… they were afraid that if you settled in Corus you'd be too preoccupied to even think about your future, or worse…" He shrugged. "You already know how noblemen look at country girls."

"They were afraid someone would turn my head?" Daine laughed, torn between amusement and insulted pride. "I have better sense than that."

"Sense? Can I remind you that a week ago we were screwing each other in a filthy hay loft, with guards less than twenty feet away?" Numair had lowered his voice, but he made his words deliberately crude to prove his point. "Sense doesn't come into that kind of madness."

"But that's with you!" She replied, taken aback. "I wouldn't…"

"I'm flattered, but yes, you would have. If it hadn't been me it would have been a rider, or a squire, or a stranger from a Beltane fire, and you would have loved every second of it and wanted more. If you were lucky, the man you chose might have wanted more from you than just sex… or maybe you would have grown tired first, and found someone else who made your blood race, and then another. After a while it would have become more about the nights in the shadows than the faces you looked at in the morning."

"Alanna thinks I would act like that?" Daine asked. Numair smiled at her appalled expression.

"I imagine she would blame me, since I've spent the last five years doing exactly that. She doesn't credit me with much respect for your moral upbringing."

"It's not like you paraded your women in front of me." She muttered. "I just listened through the wall a few times, that's all."

"Well, we'll spare her that detail, if you don't mind." Numair kept walking and waited for her to speak. She walked steadily, mulling over everything he had told her.

Rather predictably, the news of having a small fortune set aside for her had barely fazed the girl, but she had been worried when she heard about her friends arguing for so long over her. She hadn't looked especially hurt by Numair's confession, either, although Numair suspected that if Alanna had told her the story his own part in it would have seemed a great deal more selfish.

He hadn't wanted Daine to leave, although at the time he still put the sickening feeling of loss down to overprotectiveness rather than anything else. He had seen the odd glances Thayet and Jon had exchanged when they told him the plan, and his pride had been hurt. He could see the real reason why they wanted to send Daine away, and it hurt that his friends believed that he was such a bad influence on his closest friend. As hurt as he was, he had barely considered the plan, and had been ready to argue from the beginning. It was only afterwards that he wondered if they also thought Daine was a bad influence on him. She was certainly making him irrational.

He hadn't heard anything else about the dowry until after the final battle. Daine had sneaked into the healer's wing and fought to take him back to the tower. Thayet climbed up into the cart to say goodbye, and when she was sure that Daine couldn't hear, had lowered her voice.

"Daine's in love with you." She had said, and after a few more exchanges she leant closer and whispered, "I'll try to tell Alanna gently, but you know what she'll think."

"I didn't do anything." He rethought this a little, bit back the lie, and corrected himself. "I didn't do anything on purpose."

"I have to know, Numair: When you argued about Castle Greene, was that because…"

"No!" He burst out, and then yelped and pressed a hand to his side. "No. Gods, I wish I had agreed. I wouldn't feel like such a wretch now if she had gone."

Thayet looked at him levelly for a moment. "So you really are in love with her." She nodded to herself and then shrugged at his expression. "It's hard to tell. You two have always been very close, and I know sometimes things can just happen. The wine is too rich, or the night is too cold, or the battle was hard won, and things can… just happen. If that's what this is, please tell me now."

He thought about the valley in the immortal realms, and the spidren standing over Daine's body. He thought about the bloodstained clothes on the bound body, and the way she had come to him when he had finally set her loose. He remembered the smell of blood, of fresh water and sweat and cold dead stone, and the kiss which _had_ just happened, which he had stopped, which Daine had returned with a passion which should have brought the stones to life. And perhaps that had just happened, too.

"I love her." He said. "And she's in love with me."

"Don't you dare hurt her." Thayet said, and beneath the beauty in her eyes there was a genuine spark of anger which told him all he needed to know about how hurt she was by his betrayal. Whether they thought he was conniving, devious, lecherous or just lovesick beyond all sense, he knew that all of the others would also lay the blame on him.

But Daine had kissed him back. And even if it had just happened, it had still held more meaning than any other moment in his life.

"What do you think about all of this?" He asked Daine as they walked, unable to bear her silence for a moment more. She looked up at him, shrugged, and shook herself out of her reverie.

"I dunno." She told him. "I figure Alanna must think our lessons were a fair bit more interesting than I ever remember them being. That's kind of a horrible thing for her to think. And Thayet doesn't like her plans being spoiled, and Jon's prob'ly caught between them trying to dodge the crossfire. On balance I reckon it's a good thing we're going to be away for the palace for a few days."

"Are you angry at me?" Numair had to ask, dreading her answer. She shrugged again and shook her head.

"Not really. You should have told me this weeks ago, but I guess it is a sorry tangle of nonsense to try to unravel." She sighed and shook her head. "You really are all so stupid sometimes that it hurts my head. Why didn't any of you think to ask me what I wanted?"

"We were worried about you." He said uncomfortably. "After we got back from Carthak we all wanted to help you, but you just shut us out. Even me. Whenever we tried to talk to you, you made jokes or changed the subject."

"Oh." She looked absently up into the sky, greeting a flock of starlings who sang out to her as they skimmed past. Numair thought that it would be the end of the conversation, when she added in a toneless voice: "Do you think Ozorne changed me?"

"I.." Numair hesitated, and then spoke very carefully. "I think he hurt you more than you'll admit."

"Then it's a good thing I killed him, isn't it?" She said with a brittle smile. "It's a good thing I tore his throat out. It sure feels like something they all _failed_ to help me with. I don't reckon asking me how I feel about all that is going to make it any better for me. I guess bickering about who I sleep with is the closest they can get to actually making a difference in my life."


	29. Cold Blooded

As darkness fell, the struggling procession made its way into the dark stretches of a ravine. A river had spent centuries wearing down the soft stone around them into dizzying swirls of ancient currents, but the great crashing flood had dwindled down to a sheepish little stream which often disappeared under the precarious rock floor.

A hundred years ago, the townsfolk upriver had heard about the wonders of irrigation. They had flooded their fields so quickly that every blade of wheat had washed away. The farmers had to abandon their land and beg the horrified townsfolk to let them sleep in the inn. That night the people realised, to their horror, that the waters were still rising. When the flood reached the steps of the Mother's temple they knew that their town was doomed. They fled and built another settlement further up the hill. The accidental lake had been snidely christened the "Bathing Goddess" by mapmakers across Tortall, although the locals were still fond of rolling their eyes and calling it "Tim's Bright Idea".

The valley was an interesting oddity which Numair slowed down to amble through whenever he travelled between Corus and his home. The walls were decorated with shards of mica and river silt which caught the light in thousands of gemlike colours, and after hundreds of years the river had carried countless treasures in its indifferent currents. Coins, weapons, gourds and even bones were wedged into the walls so far above the valley floor that only a mage could reach them and pry them from the rock. It took a keen eye to spot the tiny artefacts, and sometimes the man could travel through the valleys four or five times before he even saw the white glimmer of bone. Whatever he found, he took away with a deep sense of satisfaction.

Daine usually rode ahead, and waited for Numair where the valley had evened out into the rolling plains of farmland. She hated the chasm. It was cold, and dark, and it smelled of death. Any good fertile soil the river had brought here had grown cold and worthless in the sickly shadows. Moss and fungi struggled to root themselves on the slick rocks, and the frogs who lurked under the stones were dull witted and spiteful. Everything the river brought here had been starved of any richness it had once possessed. She always found herself looking uneasily at the thin strip of sky above the cliffs, wondering what it must have been like this deep under the river, with the great velvet swathes of river weed wrapping themselves around the fish and otters who danced up towards the sunlight.

The decision to camp there hadn't been made by either of them – which was a blessing, because they would have argued over it. Instead, the villagers had approached Duke Baird in a respectful knot, pleading with him to let them rest for the night. Where their guardians saw ancient stones or rotting weeds, the villagers saw protection. The narrow passage and tall stone walls would hide them from most immortals, and they could see any others coming. Baird quickly agreed with them. In his mind, anything which would help the villagers sleep a little easier was a blessing. He gave the signal for everyone to stop walking, and then dismounted with a weary groan and looked for somewhere to hitch his horse. Daine took the reins with a small smile and slipped the halter from the pony's face, letting her amble around freely.

"She won't run away." She said to the healer, seeing the objection on his lips. Her mouth quirked in an odd laugh. "She says she hates you slightly less than the rest of the idiot humans, so she'll stay with you until she finds someone better."

"Charming." The man yawned and scratched his nose, too tired to laugh at the silly comment. Daine flashed him a grin.

"Ponies always are." She laughed, and darted away to help the villagers set up camp.

Together they gathered thin sticks which had fallen down from the trees clinging to the cliffs above their heads, and listened to them whine and hiss as the damp wood struggled to light. The ones which sputtered out completely were quickly swallowed up in great roars of black flame, which the villagers gaped at before remembering to load thicker pieces of wood into the blaze. Daine hid a smile and kept circling the camp, counting fifteen fires in all. That meant fifteen families, she figured, which was about right: there had been sixteen houses in the village.

This was the first night the villagers had spent reunited. Many of them clung to each other and sobbed. Every fire seemed to hold a shadow. No family had been left untouched. Mothers were left with empty arms, and beloved grandparents were no longer there to comfort them. The men muttered to each other with a mixture of anger and pain, but most of them seemed too heartsick and weary to do much other than talk. They settled down quickly, and soon the valley was filled with the uncanny soughing sound of mothers whispering stories to their children and fathers murmuring prayers.

"Shall we make a fire?" Numair asked. Daine jumped. He had walked up to her so quietly that she hadn't heard him. Or maybe, she thought guiltily, she had been deafened by the dense sorrow of these people in this wretched place. It was almost as painful as the screaming silence of the creatures which had torn their families apart. Seeing her confusion, he pushed her hair back behind her ears. "Daine, you look exhausted."

"I don't know." She whispered, dully surprised to hear her voice was choked with tears. "Maybe we should stay with them."

"We can't do anything." The man looked as uncomfortable as she felt when he looked at the campfires, but under the sympathy his voice was certain. "They need time to… to work out what's happened to them. They have to decide what to do now. If we intrude on that they'll ask us for the answers, and I don't… we don't have any."

"No." Daine shook her head, mentally cursing the immortals for their wilful ignorance. These people didn't want to hear that they had been attacked because another creature had been frightened. That didn't make sense. They wanted their horrifying experience to have meant something, and it didn't. Its utter pointlessness made their suffering all the more brutal.

She couldn't cry, though. Her throat burned with wretched tears, but she couldn't shed them. This wasn't her grief. She had no right to mourn with these people, only watch them helplessly from outside of their embracing firelight. She didn't know the right words to speak to them, and Daine knew that she would never have the courage to try.

Numair rested his hand on her shoulder, and she let herself be pulled away from the firelight. Turning away didn't break the odd heaviness of sorrow, but she found herself wrapping her arms tightly around him and burying her head into his chest. That seemed to say far more than a thousand stumbling words. He returned her silence in that shared darkness, resting his cheek against the top of her head and waiting patiently for her to speak. When he realised the girl was shivering, he led her to a dry shelf of rock and they built a fire.

Daine fed the flames slowly, feeling numb. Her anger and betrayal had given her a stubborn energy which had carried her through two days and a night without sleep, but the pressing weight of sorrow had brought a wave of weariness crashing down on her so heavily that she felt dizzy with it. She didn't know if she wanted to cry, or eat, or sleep, or force herself awake again so that she could guard the camp. She watched the flames in a bleary haze, seeing them blur and flicker and feeling the smoke stinging her eyes.

The world tipped sideways in a dizzy whirl, and she heard a sharp intake of breath before something caught her and held her safely. For a second she fought it, thinking that she was ill or bewitched, and then she felt the softness of a blanket around her and a pillow beneath her head. Sleep reached thick, oily fingers towards her before she panicked and shoved it back. Hauling her eyes open, she looked back at the villagers and saw that they were weak, and unarmed, and…

"It's alright." A gentle voice said, and she felt her hair being smoothed back from her forehead. "I'm on guard. Sleep."

Daine breathed out a sigh of muffled relief and struggled to make her limbs move. It was a battle even to make them strong enough for her to lift her head onto his lap. As soon as she was settled she fell fast asleep.

Numair watched the worry and sadness disappear from her pale skin like smoke, and for a moment he wondered how bright and unmarked she would have been, had she been sent away. But it would have been too late, even if they had gone through with it. He recognised Ozorne in the darkness which haunted his friend, and he felt as powerless against the man's shadows as Daine felt with the villagers.

He closed his eyes, meditating, and cast the strongest barrier he could around their stretch of the valley. The smoke from the fires pooled in its bowl-like ceiling, but he balked at the thought of adapting the spell. For a few weeks he would only let himself cast the most basic spells, forcing his complacent hands to weave simple patterns. He forbade himself the complex tapestries that children had torn through so easily.

When the spell was cast he broke away, leaving scores of tiny warning traps along every part of it so that he would know the second a threat approached. Then he opened his eyes, blinking in the darkness, and realised that the fire had nearly burned out. Daine was shivering a little in her sleep, but when he built up the fire she still trembled. A nightmare, then.

It wouldn't be about herself, he knew. She hadn't been thinking about herself when she fell asleep; all of her attention had been focused on the villagers. It was one of the most complicated things about the girl – that she had such complete empathy for any suffering creature. She would work all night to heal an animal which would fly away in the morning without more than a few caws, but not complain about her tiredness as it made her struggle through the next day's work.

Daine knew nothing about the villagers, not even their names, but she knew what they were suffering and her heart ached for them. She could not heal humans the same way she healed animals, but she still felt a feral desperation to take away their wounds. It was nothing to do with her magic – although it had taken Numair a few years to truly work that out. It was just in her nature to care about people.

"I'm so lucky to know you." He said, and stroked her hair until her trembling eased.

He gently lay her down in her bedroll and set his own up beside her. Her lips moved a little in her sleep, and with a flash of sudden humour Numair wondered if she argued with her nightmares as stubbornly as she argued with… well, him. By the time he lay down beside her she was shaking again, her hands shifting pathetically against whatever was daring to argue back. He gently slid his arms around her waist and felt her relax and fall back into a deeper sleep.

That was another thing, the man thought sleepily as he started to doze. Had she had such bad dreams before? Surely he would have noticed her unconscious struggles from his own bedroll, or seen the dark shadows under her eyes in the morning? How was it that he had only found out about this now?

The animals must have helped her. The thought made him want to laugh with a mixture of irritation and relief. Relief, because he knew that she hadn't been alone at all in those long months. Her animal friends would have cuddled up to her as willingly as he did now. His irritation was less fleeting, but he only felt it hurt for a moment. She had kept another secret from him, but it was the same pain she had tried to hide a hundred times before. Daine had never found out how to talk about it. The relief came back, more steadily this time, and it was the last thing he felt before he fell asleep. He could finally help.

He woke up in the early morning darkness feeling as if he had been struck by electricity. Damn it, he had forgotten how crude the simple warning spells were. His involuntary motion had woken up Daine, and she twisted around in his arms to peer sleepily into the darkness.

"Wha's wrong?"

"Something's coming." He said softly. She became very still for a moment, and then the dark shadows of her eyes shimmered and caught more of the moonlight. She looked around the clearing carefully, scanning the boundaries of the warding spell for any strange shadow. It wasn't until long minutes later that she thought to look up, and then she drew in a shallow breath.

"There." She whispered, and caught Numair's hand so she could point him towards the danger. "At the top of the cliffs. Climbing down."

"Spidren?" He asked, and Daine shook her head.

"Human." She said, and there was no mistaking the disgust in her voice. "No colours, but too well armed to be bandits."

"Mercenaries?" Numair could guess exactly who had sent them. Just like Daine, he knew exactly why these men had been hired. If it hadn't been the dead boy's parents, then doubtless it had been another one of the noble families who had threatened the villagers. They had left the castle secretly hoping that the nobles wouldn't have time to seek their revenge, but one of them must have used the time to organise this cowardly ambush.

Daine had closed her eyes and grown very still, and Numair carefully untangled them both from the bedroll. She was doubtless scouring the valley for any animal eyes, ears and claws which could help them. While she sent her mind away, he checked his barrier spell for weaknesses. The mercenaries were creeping towards them from the cliffs above, and he could feel the dull dischords of dispelling charms tied to their leather armour. The charms could distort the barrier enough for them to slip in one by one; as long as they didn't all dive through at once, the barrier wouldn't realise they were there.

The villagers were sleeping beside their dim fires. Waking them up would doubtless cause a panic. Instead, Numair sent a second shield looping around them, inside of the first dome. This shield blocked sound, and light, and even dust. If anything tried to pass through it the impact would burn them like fire. The mercenaries were just making their way through the first shield when he opened his eyes and stood up.

There was a strangled cry, and someone came tumbling down the cliff behind him. Numair yelped and leapt forwards as the sick crump of flesh hitting rock rang in his ears. The man lay with his eyes distended, staring up at the sky. As the mage took in the gruesome sight something moved behind the corpse's lips. A long, sinuous shadow oozed out from between the man's lips, and slithered back into the rocks without even looking at Numair. He pressed a hand to his own mouth, fighting the urge to vomit.

"They probably heard that." Daine said, standing up beside him. She looked apologetically at his sickened expression but her voice was defensive. "I told you nothing wants to live here. I work with what I can find."

"Please at least tell me he was dead when that snake…"

"Why do you think he fell off the cliff in the first place?" She asked tartly. Numair shuddered and looked away, so she gave him a twisted frown. "He was ten feet above you with a drawn bow."

"I'm fine with you killing him, magelet. I just wasn't ready to see one of my nightmares come so vividly true." He swallowed hard and then checked his defences. The mercenaries had found the second barrier, and were circling it with slow, thoughtful steps. He could see the auras of at least three mages in their midst. If they worked together, they might be able to break through his shield.

Closer to their own fire, two men were squinting into the darkness to find out who had fallen from the cliff. As far as they knew, the man had simply slipped. They hadn't heard the ring of metal or the thunk of an arrow. As they came closer Daine and Numair ducked back against the cliff, pressing themselves into the shadows and covering the shining steel of their weapons with their hands so that the moonlight would not give them away.

The men found the body and whispered to one another, prodding it with their feet. It looked like an accident. They spat at the man's idiotic feet and turned away.

"The villagers are safe behind my shield." Numair whispered. "It will take those men a long time to break through."

"There are thirty of them." Daine replied, her eyes unfocused as she listened to the snakes. "Twenty nine, now. But there's only two of us."

"We need to split them up." Numair pointed back along the valley in the direction they had walked from. "Can you chase some of them over there?"

"Yes," Daine said, looking confused, "But why…?"

"Count to sixty, and then make them run." He grinned and disappeared into the darkness. Daine sighed and folded her arms, quickly asking the snakes to slip under the stones towards the men's feet. As they made their way through silt and stones, she sent them pictures of cobras and coral snakes, ones that spat and hissed and reared up. The mercenaries might recognise the dull, common patterns of the corn and river snakes, but if they struck quickly and looked dangerous enough then the men might be too frightened to look closely. The snakes were shy, solitary creatures who kept hissing in surprise whenever they crossed paths with another snake. Most of them had no idea there were other snakes in the valley at all.

Daine reached sixty, and then sent the word of command to the snakes. As they reared up she shrank back and watched them even as she made her body grow and her fingernails sharpen. The snakes erupted from beneath the men's feet in a hissing wave, rearing up on their muscular spines and weaving as they bared their teeth. The men cried out and leapt back, stumbling over their own feet and weapons in their panic. Most of them turned and fled.

The ones who didn't started calling out, pointing at the blunt-fanged snakes and laughing, until a low rumbling growl made them flinch and look around. An enormous bear lumbered towards them, its long teeth bared and its claws gouging strips from the soil. As they froze in terror, the bear reared up on its hind legs and roared.

Stones trembled and fell from the cliffs at the noise, and kept falling under the frantic thudding of running feet. The bear gave chase, and they ran faster to get away from its hungry, feral snarls. They ran back down the valley, twisting ankles and falling down onto the sharp edges of rocks, and then found that they were trapped behind an invisible barrier. They screamed and beat against it, knowing that any minute sharp fangs and huge, blunt claws would tear through their flesh.

Dimly, a few of them heard the bear stop running. The snarls stopped. They snakes fled from their ankles. Their panic was so great that they couldn't make sense of any of it, until the trickle of loose pebbles turned into a roar of sound. They threw up their hands and cried out as massive chunks of the cliff above them came tumbling down. The earth shook as the rocks crashed into it, and they were thrown back against the barrier by the impact of the landslide. Miraculously, none of the rocks fell directly onto anyone. A few arms were broken as people dove for safety, and many of the men had crushed feet from the smaller rocks, but every single one of them was still alive.

Eight men had stayed behind, pressing themselves against the cliffs and watching their frightened comrades with disdain. As the men behind the rock fall groaned and dragged themselves free from the stones, they heard those men cry out. The sounds chilled them. They were the cries of battle, of effort and pain, and finally of death.

They huddled together at the base of the rocks, not daring to climb over and see what had happened. They waited, because they knew that whatever had trapped them would be coming back. And they prayed, because they had all been told about the vicious, lying mages who they were being paid to hunt down. They knew that they outnumbered them, so they thought they had a chance. Now, lying with each others' blood on their faces, many of them were simply listening to their own heartbeats and wondering how long they would last.

A shadow fell across them, and they looked up to the top of the rock pile to see two people watching them.

"Who sent you?" The smaller figure asked in a woman's voice. The men looked at each other, and she took a step towards them. Despite her slight figure, there was no mistaking the deadly seriousness in her eyes. "Don't make us ask again. There are worse things than snakes in this valley."

The men might have laughed at those words from such a fragile looking woman, but they knew who she was. They had just seen thirty trained mercenaries reduced to weeping children in less than five minutes by this slip of a girl. And they all felt the frightened tears on their own cheeks, and saw that she was tapping her foot impatiently. She knew they were afraid. She knew they were afraid _of her,_ and she didn't care. She looked at the men as if she had just scraped them off the sole of her boot.

The man had been standing silently beside her, but now he spoke. "You tried to murder innocent people tonight. Tell us who paid you and we'll let you live." Seeing the blood and broken limbs and the terrified expressions on the captor's faces, his voice became softer. "We warded the villagers. They don't even know that you were here. If you tell us who sent you, they never need to know the truth."

"We have enough bodies to show them." The girl agreed, looking back distractedly back towards whatever horrors the mercenaries couldn't imagine. She shrugged and turned back to them. She pointed to the other mage, who looked just as forbidding. "It's his idea to cover this up. Personally, I don't like lying to my friends. If you don't tell us who paid you, I won't have to."

A tremor of nervous whispers jolted through the captives at that. One of the men struggled to his feet and, in a respectful and frightened voice, said a few short words. It wasn't much – just a name and a price – but it was all that the mages seemed to want. The man nodded seriously and then stepped forward and pulled the man out of the group.

"You'll stay with us." He said, ignoring the sudden look of horror on the mercenary's face. Then he waved a hand idly towards the barrier. "The rest of you: go away."

They looked around dazedly to see that the shimmering wall was gone, but the man's indifference made them bristle. Now that the fear was ebbing away, they felt embarrassed by their pathetic ambush. They were just reaching for their weapons when one of the men cried out and pointed at the rocks. They watched in horror as the girl held her arms out and hundreds of snakes seethed up her legs and covered her body, weaving in and out of her clothes and hair until she disappeared completely. The snakes dropped away from the empty air, and the girl was gone. It was as if she had been eaten alive.

The men scrambled away as fast as they could. They didn't dare look back until long after the sun rose.


	30. Proof

"Well, it terrified me." Numair said, leaning back against the wall. Daine shot him a glare, and the man shrugged at Duke Baird. "Daine wants me to think that the wolves who helped her slaughter bandits in Galla are cute, cuddly creatures. Compared to wolves, snakes are demons from the dark god's realm."

"They saved your life! Next time I'll let you get shot." She muttered under her breath, and then prodded him with her toe. Duke Baird had woken up to find a row of dead bodies, a hostage whose back was magically glued to the cliff who was wriggling like an upside down tortoise, and a completely blocked off valley. It hadn't taken him long to find the culprits, who were tangled into an exhausted knot, fast asleep beside a newly built fire. From the looks of their clothes and the protective way they were wrapped around each other, it had been an eventful night.

Baird used his magic to conceal the corpses from the villagers. He did the same for the captive, and contemplated climbing up to heal his wounds. The man spat down at him, so Baird nodded a respectful farewell, calmly turned him invisible, and then helped the villagers to make breakfast. When they were busy eating hard trail bread and brook water filtered through a magical flask, he returned to the mages and woke them up to hear the story.

"Your hostage is awake." He said after they had finished speaking. Daine shrugged, yawning, but Numair looked towards the cliff and said, "Is there any spare breakfast for him?"

"You want to feed him?" Daine asked incredulously. The man raised an eyebrow at her.

"He volunteered. Why should we punish him more than all the men we let go?"

She thought about this, and then nodded slowly. There was a touch of shame in her voice. "Then we should heal him, too. He's got a broken wrist."

"He also spits." Baird pointed out in a dry voice. Still, he stood up with them and waited for them to let the hostage down from the wall. The man was far more polite this time, for some reason. When he had been given a chance to relieve himself he settled down to be healed without much rancour. By his calloused hands and old clothes, he hadn't come from a mercenary collegium; he looked more like a bandit who had been trying to make a legitimate living. Normally sell-swords were hired as bodyguards rather than assassins, he told them between gulps of food. Still, he hadn't turned down the job, and (with a nervous glance at Daine) he swore that he was very, very sorry about that.

"How much did they pay you?" Daine asked. When the man told her, she laughed humourlessly and looked him dead in the eyes. "Four silver crowns? That's less than a copper per life."

"I bow to your superior adding skills." The man said nervously, but he added in a pert voice: "I thought of it more as a month's worth of bread."

The girl made an odd noise and moved away. Baird took the chance to move closer and start moving the man's bones back into place. In the resulting pain, the mercenary forgot whatever other excuses he may have offered.

"She doesn't like bandits." Numair said, perching on a rock beside the mercenary and watching his healing with interest. The man gritted his teeth and didn't look around.

"I'm not a bandit."

"Then you're something worse. You kill people for money."

"So do you." The man's voice was distracted, but his words rang true. Duke Baird flicked his eyes up to Numair's for a moment, and then his attention snapped back when the man let out a groan of pain. To the healer's surprise Numair didn't look offended or even surprised by the man's accusation. He had been smiling slightly when Baird had glanced up, and now his voice was calm and even.

"The difference is, we would never sell innocent lives for any price. If our friends are in danger then we defend ourselves. Last night you put every person in this valley in danger – including your fellow assassins – for a few coins. You started it; we defended our friends better than you defended yours, and you lost." He shrugged and stood up, brushing dust off his knees. Then, apparently second guessing himself, he knelt back down and leaned closer to the man's face. "Don't think for a second that means you're safe. Until you've confessed in front of a priest and named your patron, I will see you as a threat."

"Does anyone else think I'm dangerous?" The man asked, and for a moment there was a shard of fear in his eyes as he looked around the camp. Understanding the expression, Numair shook his head in amazement. Daine could do more damage with parlour tricks and a few sleepy reptiles than he might have done if he had crushed every one of them under the rocks.

"The wildmage doesn't share my restraint." He said. The bandit looked confused, and Numair belatedly realised that his words may have been a little too academic. He tried to look fierce. "I told you: she really, really hates bandits."

"Please tell her I'm… not…" The man trailed off, but he looked so sick with fear that Numair felt almost sorry for him. Baird laughed softly and looked around.

"His pulse is so high I could use it for a marching beat." He drawled, and stood up. "Are you going to frighten him to death, Black Robe?"

"Not if he behaves himself," Numair retorted quickly, but he felt a little foolish. The healer grinned suddenly at him, and he realised that Baird playing along with the trick. The bandit was sitting perfectly still now, his hands folded smartly in his lap like a child waiting for his mother to send him to bed. They tied his wrist to a rope, magically affixed the rope to a boulder, and then headed over to the villagers.

They asked for a strong volunteer, and chose the most placid looking man. Some of the others would not be trusted with a captive; they already looked like they were spoiling for a fight. Bringing the captive over to the group, Baird explained that he was a pickpocket who they needed to escort to the nearest gaol. Amidst the sudden flutter of pocket checking, the captive was tied securely to the volunteer's wrist. A few of the other men made a suspicious looking entourage. In a strange ambling clump, they began to make their way out of the valley into the sunlight.

They came to the fork in the road by noon, and rested there for a while so that the villagers would have a chance to eat before they saw the ruins of their village. A change drifted through them like warm bathing water as they sat on the crossroads. For the first time since they had left the city a few of them wore nervous smiles, and the sound of weeping was completely gone. Children were chasing each other away from their mother's clutches, and even the angriest men were talking to each other with arms unfolded. The sky was a beautiful clear blue, so bright in places that it looked white, and several people were pointing at the soil and talking excitedly about the harvest. They all knew this land so well that they were aching to keep walking home; they felt like they were climbing out of a nightmare back into a normal life.

Duke Baird spoke to a group of the villagers and then thoughtfully beckoned Daine and Numair over. In soft voices, the council asked them about defences, spells and wards which might help them. They asked Daine if there were any immortals nearby, and they asked the Duke if he believed they might still be sick. After the men and women had their answers, they talked among themselves for a while and then softly, respectfully, asked all three mages if they would let them continue to their village alone.

Daine had been expecting it, and so she nodded before either of the men had a chance to argue. Of course the villagers didn't want them there. They knew that the immortals would not attack them a second time. They wanted their lives to return to normal as soon as possible: something that would not happen with three powerful mages looking over their shoulders. It was just as the girl had told Jon; their pride didn't permit it. They each agreed to share all their plans with Jolyon, and to defer to the boy if he was sent any word from the capital. But, they insisted, it wouldn't be necessary.

Before they left, Numair summoned a small orb of light from the air and handed it to the head woman. She took it tentatively, holding the orb between her wrinkled hands as if she expected it to bite her.

"It's a speaking spell." Numair told her, closing her fingers over the orb. When she opened her hand again the spell looked like a solid sphere of crystal, with barely a glimmer of black flame inside it. She cooed and peered at it so closely her nose was reflected bulbously in the glass. The mage straightened up and smiled crookedly at the others. "If you need help, please use it."

They bowed and stood up to rejoin their families. The mages watched them go with mixed emotions. None of them really believed the villagers would ask for help, even if they were desperate. But all three of them knew that these were adult men and women, not children. They could not try to care for them forever. If they hadn't scared the assassins away they might have ignored the request and continued to the village with them, but after one failed attempt it was very doubtful that the noble would try again. He was a rich man, but not stupid. One failed attempt was enough of a lesson for him to stop throwing his money into the privy.

Duke Baird went to retrieve the captive. Since the healer was going to turn around and head back to Corus, it was easiest for him to take the man with him. Although his magic was trained to heal, he was formidable enough to deal with one man easily. The route back would take an extra day, since the valley had been caved in. When he got back to the castle he would tell Jon about it. The king could send teams of workers to dig out the trade route and bury the bodies.

"The villagers should be settled by the time they're done." Numair said. "If they need our help, it will be in the next few weeks."

"Jon said he wanted us back at the castle soon. We have to deal with the immortals." Daine pointed out, and then added more awkwardly, "And he still wants to talk to us about… about my dowry, I guess."

"The road is blocked." The man gestured back, and then added, "Until they clear it, it'll take an extra day for help to reach these people from the city. It would be pointless for us to have gone through all of this just to let them fall prey to bandits. It's better if we're stuck here than an entire unit of soldiers."

Daine nodded and only glanced back towards the road once more. The further away they got from Jon, the easier it felt to disobey his orders. Sometimes she wondered what he would actually do if he found out how many of his instructions they had disobeyed or reinterpreted over the years. Probably nothing, she thought with a smile. Alanna seemed to have made it through her life almost unscathed, and she sometimes spoke to Jon as if she was amazed he could string two words together.

It was a mistake, although neither of them would realise it for several days. Jonathan's anger was the most pleasant thing that came from their disobedience. The other consequences were far worse, but as they began collecting their belongings neither of the two mages were thinking that far ahead. Just as Daine had thought, they were in the habit of disobeying direct orders as soon as they were left to their own devices. The trait had served them as independent thought, or quick thinking, in their past missions. In the divine realms they couldn't have reported back to the king if they had wanted to. And so, now, they had lost the habit of obedience. Neither of them realised for a second that Jon's order had been made to protect them.

While the mages had been speaking to the council Jolyon had begun circling around the villagers. He spoke with each family in his high voice and asked them so many questions that even the surliest men started smiling in bafflement. The boy chattered away about their names, their homes and their jobs, and by the time he had circled the whole group he was smiling and waving to people who had already warmed to his outrageously brash personality. Only his hand, clutching carefully at the bulge in his shirt where the bat was hiding, gave him away. Underneath his broad smile he was genuinely nervous.

"What happens when they find out what I did?" He asked Daine as she packed away the last of the food rations. The girl blinked at him, a puzzled line appearing between her grey eyes.

"It wasn't just you. The other boys were just as…"

"I was there." Jolyon looked down at his feet with a miserable frown. "I'm s'posed to be helping them feel better about what happened, and I'm the one who made it worse. Those nobles wouldn't be so angry with them if I hadn't led their sons to…" he swallowed and looked around nervously. "What if more assassins come and they realise it's my fault?"

Daine took a deep breath, and then decided not to say the first angry thought that flew into her mind. Instead she let out the air in a long sigh and closed her eyes for a second. This was her fault, she decided. She had told Jolyon that he was going to be in charge of the villagers, without even thinking of how he would interpret that. She had simply meant that he was tied to them, through his land and his connections to Corus. All he had to do was settle down into the village and help these men and women to rebuild their lives. But he had panicked, thinking that he was supposed to solve all of their problems like an earl or a knight, holding councils and hearing their disputes with the wisdom of the Mother Goddess herself.

Daine opened her eyes and gave the boy a watery smile. Instead of saying anything, she looped her arm around his shoulders and pointed down the road, along the fork which lead away to the village. He already knew what was down there, but she wanted the excuse to tear his eyes away from the villagers.

"We only live ten miles away." She said, pointing down the road to the horizon where the top of the tower was just visible, cresting above the trees. Jolyon gave her a scathing look for pointing out the obvious, and she ruffled his hair. "What I mean is, if you ever need help or just someone to talk to, this road will take you there so fast you won't even have time to dry your eyes."

"I don't cry." He said snottily. "Crying's for girls."

"Well then, I guess you won't be needing us, then!" She laughed at his mock-offended expression and then made her voice serious. "There doesn't need to be a good reason, Joly. Come and see us whenever you like."

"Just knock this time." A voice said behind her, and Daine blushed bright red and smothered a laugh behind her hand. Jolyon's mood changed in a mischievous instant; he grinned and darted away without a backwards glance. Numair caught Daine's cheeks between his hands and kissed her nose lightly before letting her go.

"Forgive me," He said, "I couldn't resist. You look exceptionally lovely when you blush, magelet."

"Oh, you…!" She burst out, and then had to fight to hide another blushing smile. "You do realise he's run off to tell every single villager that ridiculous story?"

"He knows more than most people. I suppose we can trust him to be accurate." The man said, leaving a very pointed and meaningful pause over the last word. Daine groaned and half-heartedly pushed him away, then changed her mind and pulled him back for a rapid, but very heated kiss.

"What was that for?" Numair failed to hide a grin when she let him go. Daine pulled the same face back at him and nodded towards the milling crowds of people.

"People know." She said, fumbling over the words a little and trying to bite back the smile that she could feel tugging at her lips. "They know properly. It's not a secret any more that I love you. It… it feels…" she searched her mind for the words, and managed: "People knew you loved me before all this. Not how much, but… but enough for people to know it. But I've never loved anyone before. They couldn't see it in me like they could in you. And I wanted us to be… to be seen."

The man smiled and gently stroked her hair back behind her ears, then let his fingertips drift over the soft skin of her cheek. Beside the loving sweetness of that gesture, his voice was teasing. "Does that mean you'd rather not come home with me? I was hoping for rather less of an audience."

"So far, we've been spied on by two cats, a collie, one dragon, six mice, a squirrel and a human child." Daine pointed out, and then giggled when Numair flushed bright red. She couldn't resist teasing him. "Oh, don't worry. Most of them had nice things to say."

"Most! Are you seriously telling me that they're in your head when we…?"

"The collie said we were the wrong way around." Daine tried to sound thoughtful, and then collapsed into laughter when Numair choked over whatever strangled answer he was trying to make. It was a long time before she could stop laughing, and when he realised that she had been teasing him she heard Numair laughing as well. It was the first time she had heard him so relaxed since most of the sorry mess began.

"I don't have them in my head." She finally managed, wiping tears of laughter from her eyes. "It's just me."

"So it's just you who thinks we were the wrong way around?" He made his voice sound aloof, but he couldn't hide the mischief in his eyes. Daine shoved at him playfully and made a show of rolling her eyes.

"Mari already teased me enough for thinking that was how people… um. I'm not even going to answer…"

"Sometimes I wonder where your friend gets her baffling insights from. " He waved a hand in the air like an arrogant scholar and drawled the words. "She has moments of clarity, but most of the time the truth seems to elude her."

The girl blinked at him, working out the idiotic words, and then gave a short laugh. "You're not telling me she was wrong. That would be stupid."

"Oh no, I'm sure you're right." He didn't try to hide the way his lips quirked in an irresistible smile. "Did you ask anyone else?"

"Did I ask…?" Daine echoed back incredulously, and planted her hands on her hips. "No, for some reason I didn't think to ask around! You can't possibly be telling me that's true. I don't believe you!"

He leaned a little closer and lowered his voice to a heated murmur. "Daine, please don't stay with these villagers. I'm about five seconds away from casting an invisibility spell and proving you very, very wrong."

She shivered and wrapped her arms around her stomach, smiling ruefully when he smirked at the now-familiar gesture. "I'm not staying."

"Good." He said, and pulled her so close that some of the villagers shouted out catcalls. By the time he had finished kissing her some of them were shouting out bawdy rhymes, but Daine barely noticed them above the sound of her heart thudding in her ears. For a few seconds she wondered if he really knew an invisibility spell, if it would mask sounds as well as two sinuous human bodies, and then the mist cleared a little and she pulled clumsily away, blushing.

"Let's go." She said, and shouldered her pack.


	31. Shameless

It was nearly a whole week later when Daine found herself thinking, idly, that her mother would have been ashamed of her. It was a fleeting thought, and probably (the girl thought) more down to the state of the room more than anything else. She couldn't help imagining her mother knocking on the door and frowning at the mess. She would work out exactly how her daughter had spent her time from the state of every item. A knocked over cup that had not even been noticed – absently knocked over, or thrown away to clear the desk? A handprint or two on the wood would have told her the answer. The crumpled clothes were certainly not scattered on the floor due to laziness. And after their first burst of passion had ended, when the thrill of being alone had become the intoxicating thick liquor of solitude, there was the path they had made to the bed, the scattered books which their playing had made them brush against, the ashes they had disturbed from the cold hearth.

Daine blushed at that sight, her body heating when she remembered how Numair had proved Mari wrong. How he had pulled her down onto the thick fur rug and how his playfulness turned into dark, commanding desire as he moved her body, and Daine had buried her fingers deep into the cold ashes and lost herself between that cold softness and the desperate, gasping heat. Everything she looked at, in their secret ways, told the same story. In their newfound freedom one of Numair's predictions had finally come true: once there was nothing stopping them, they didn't make it as far as the bed.

It occurred to Daine that her mother could very well be watching her, looking down at her now as she lay half asleep in the sunlight with the bedclothes strewn halfway across the floor. They had opened the window shutters to cool down the cloying heat of the night, but now Daine wondered if closing them again would somehow block out the eyes of the gods. She doubted it.

Besides, Sarra had given her blessing. Maybe not for all of this, but it wasn't as if she had given her daughter a good example of the proper way to do things. Not that Daine blamed her, but she told herself that if her ma did say anything, then she would say the same things back. It probably didn't make that much difference if the person you loved was a man or a god.

Numair pushed the door back open and brought her a cup of watery tea. It burned her tongue when she tried to drink it, so she set it down on the floor and felt his hands on her as she straightened back up. By the time she picked up the cup again it was stone cold.

There was nothing wrong with what they were doing, and Daine knew for certain that she didn't feel guilty or ashamed of any of it. She knew it more clearly now than she ever had before. For the first time it had been she, and not Numair, who had finally pulled them towards the bed. She had been the one to push him down, and when she pressed him into the covers and kissed him she felt his heart racing under her fingertips.

Oh, she knew that he was letting her do it. His consent came from stubbornness and experience, and he could have overpowered her in a second if he needed to. His consent was the same gentle pressure of fingertips embracing delicate skin, when he had lifted her into his arms. But now his consent was stronger, as assured as her own had become. He was silent, because she had taken away the need for words. And he echoed her every touch because, perhaps for the first time, he truly believed that she knew what she had chosen.

The first night home, after the candles had burned down into acrid stubs of smoke, Daine told him about the choice she had made in the divine realms. Her voice was calm, and soft, and in the black swirling night Numair knew that there was nothing that he should say. He listened silently, and kissed her forehead, and when she started crying he held her closely and waited for her to stop. Afterwards, he asked her why she had cried, and she honestly answered that she had no idea. It was the first and last time that they would ever talk about it.

How was it different? They had been there before, fighting against sleep to spend one more second entwined in each other's arms. Their first week Daine remembered as fevered, almost terrifying in its querulous extremes. They would move from slow, loving tenderness to desperate embraces in the space of a few heartbeats, and then fall back into each other's arms shaking with weariness and pleasure. She remembered and loved each moment of it, smiling at the Daine of a week ago who had tasted each pleasure for the first time, surrendering herself to the fear and ache of the unknown with absolute trust for the man she loved.

That first week, lying under a willow tree where the animals had been chased away, Numair had joked that they were enjoying a honeymoon without bothering to get married. He had picked a daisy from the grass and threaded the stem into her tangled hair, smiling when she pulled a face at him.

"Nobody wears daisies at their wedding." She pointed out.

"You're not wearing much else, sweetling." He picked another flower and ran the petals idly down between her breasts, watching for her shiver. Instead, she scowled and yanked the flower out of her hair.

"Why do you have to spoil things?" Her voice was cross. "Can't you just let this be what it is?"

"Just sex, then?" He raised an eyebrow at her. She huffed out a sigh and started plucking petals out of the daisy.

"It's not like two sides of a coin. 'We're either married or it's just sex… is that what you think? I thought you were supposed to be the smart one."

"It's essentially true."

"The words, maybe. What's actually the truest true thing is that we are _not_ married, but here we are, lying under a tree in the sunshine, and if our neighbours happened by and saw what we were doing half an hour ago I'm fair sure they wouldn't be looking at the other side of the coin."

He smiled and gave her a grudging nod, but couldn't resist getting in the final word. "What do you think marriage is, Daine?"

"I know about as much as you do, I reckon." She cut her eyes up at him. "Since neither of us have actually done it."

"I want it more." He said absently, picking another daisy. Daine laughed, amused out of her irritation.

"That's fair stupid. You want children more than I do, too. If wanting things made you an expert, you'd be knocked up by now."

He winced. "That's not the most graceful analogy you could have made, Daine."

"You're the one who's being blunt. 'Just sex'." She mimicked in a scornful voice. "You're such an ass sometimes."

He smiled and kissed the side of her throat. "I apologise for implying that I'm interested in your very beautiful, very _naked_ body, magelet." As if to argue with himself, he trailed his fingertips around her breast and met her wary, amused gaze with a smile. "Will you forgive me?"

"Keep apologising." She suggested with a grin, and he laughed and ducked his head down to oblige. By the time Daine pulled him down to her and wrapped her legs around his hips she had forgotten they had even been arguing. He kissed her flushed cheek and laughed, seeing the feverish haziness in her eyes.

"Should I stop?" He teased breathlessly. She shook her head and wrapped her arms around his back, and he obliged her for a few delicious strokes before asking her again, "Didn't you just say you didn't want this?"

"Not… just this." She panted, and lost her mind again for a second when he grinned and sped up. "Oh gods, I do want this. I want…"

He laughed and kissed her, and for that first week it had been enough. The world was dizzy with the colours of their enough, and whenever Numair asked her to marry him Daine had laughed and shook her head. He teased her about it until she forgot how hurt he had looked, and then he forgot how serious her own answer had been. Whatever game they were play acting fell into place, and whatever real questions they had were swallowed up by the joyful idiocy of their enough. For the first week, it had all been fine.

Lying in the sunlight, sipping cold tea and listening to her lover sleep, Daine wondered if she had been ignorant or just willingly naïve. She stroked Numair's hair and thought about pushing him away so she could move, but decided against it. There was something simple about the way he had fallen asleep with his arms wrapped around her waist, head nestled into her stomach. She wondered if the noble lords Thayet had chosen for her would have done this. Perhaps they would have, but then they might have drooled or snored and spoiled the quiet moment entirely. The girl frowned and took another drink of her tea, feeling a little guilty for thinking about other people when she was here. Gods knew why, but it seemed less unfaithful to wonder about things like that if she was dressed.

She got up eventually, carefully pushing Numair onto a pillow, and crept out of the room towards the wash room. It took a long time to heat up enough water to bathe in, and by the time she had filled the copper tub Daine's arms were aching. Too much lazing around! She scolded herself, and lowered herself into the water. It was too hot, but by the time she ducked her head into the bath it felt wonderful. She reached for the soap, ashamed at how much grime was already sliding from her skin. They hadn't thought to wash the trail away when they got home.

"We really have made each other stupid." She muttered to the soap, and then started the long task of scrubbing it into her hair. When Numair woke up, she vowed, he would have to bathe before she even let him in the same _room_ as her.

With his usual uncanny timing, the man walked into the room and stepped forward to kiss her. Daine waved her arms with a pantomime of horror. "Nuh-uh!" She cried. "You'll get me all dirty."

"Good thing you're in a bath, then," He said unrepentantly, and settled for a chaste kiss on her cheek instead. She smiled at him, and then the expression faded when he asked, "Why didn't you go down to the river?"

"I dunno." She fiddled with one of the copper handles on the tub awkwardly. They used it so rarely that a spider had spun its web through the gap. "There could be more of those things in it."

He was studying himself in the mirror, running a hand along his stubble with a thoughtful frown. Usually Daine would have teased him for his vanity, but today she wondered if it was just his way of looking away. His voice was distant. "You're afraid of them?"

"No," She said scornfully, "But... I wouldn't know if they were swimming right next to me. It's like my gift can't see them. Whenever I'm around them I feel like I'm blind in one eye."

"Hm." He still sounded distant. "Cold water usually amplifies the gift."

Her voice grew pert. "It's summer. Maybe it's too warm."

He smiled crookedly at her then and came to crouch down next to the tub. "It's a fascinating manifestation, don't you think?"

Daine sighed, recognising the academic interest which brightened his voice. This was exactly why she hadn't told him about this before! What was a very real, very uncomfortable problem for her grew long syllables and complicated names around Numair. She might have expected him to find out eventually, but she was annoyed at herself for letting him guess through something as stupid as taking a bath.

"Are you telling me there's something about my magic that you haven't got figured out?" She asked, torn between teasing him and sounding annoyed. "I thought you'd already sent your book to the palace printer."

"It'd be a good excuse for a new edition," He tweaked her nose. "Or a sequel."

"Great." Daine grumbled, cleaning dirt from her face for the third time. "Wild Magic book two: Daine gets beaten by a goldfish."

"It needs a better title." The man said in an aloof drawl, and then he stood up and started filling the heating barrel from the rain butt. Not meeting her eyes, he muttered, "I'm not trudging all the way down to that river."

"You're allowed to be afraid of them." She said it without thinking, and flushed at the sharp look he gave her. Folding her arms defensively, she raised her voice. "I'm allowed to be afraid, too. While your mind was all blank I was chasing you down through the castle in my bare feet, and dragging you out of that filthy moat water thinking you were going to bleed to death. I figure I was prob'ly more frightened than you were until you woke up and saw Alanna looming over you. That would scare anyone."

He gave her a grudging laugh, the sound a little forced. "Well, there is that."

"I need to go back." She said suddenly. "We'll not stop feeling like this until we know for sure that it's over."

"They're not the only things waiting for us in Corus." He pointed out gently. The girl shrugged awkwardly and stood up, wrapping a towel around herself before lifting her feet out of the tepid water. By the time she had poured the dirty water away down the sluice drain she still couldn't think of an answer, but she had taken so long thinking that it seemed more sensible to drop the topic.

She should have known better than to expect Numair to leave a discussion half finished. Whatever her response would have been, his made her freeze.

"Marry me." He said. There was no lightness in the words, so Daine couldn't laugh it off. She pushed back her wet hair nervously.

"Why?" She asked warily. "So people will stop talking about us?"

"Would that convince you?" He shook his head in disbelief. "Daine, if that makes you say yes, then I'll take back the offer."

"Then you chose a fair stupid time to make it, didn't you?" She planted her hands on her hips, suddenly angry. "Serves me right for thinking you keep saying that for any other reason than to annoy me. I should say yes, if it'd make you stop asking."

"I asked you because I love you." He retorted, and there was such a mixture of anger and affection in his voice that Daine would have laughed, if she hadn't already been out of sorts. She laughed and shook her head, mimicking words which he had teased her with the week before in a sharp voice.

"You love sleeping with me."

"I don't need to marry you for that." He stepped forward and caught the edge of her towel, and when she scowled and moved away he caught her shoulders and kissed her fiercely, feeling her hands twisting angrily in his hair and stopping him from moving away. Tearing the towel away, he pressed her down onto the wet tiles and kissed her again, feeling her warm breath panting against his skin as she pulled away and then caught his lower lip between her teeth. Then she shoved him away, twisting around and pinning him down as he had to her, her breath quick with the effort.

"You're just as bad as I am." She snapped, her hands tearing at his clothes even as she avoided his kisses. He growled and pulled her down, swallowing the words from her lips and twisting again, feeling her hands on him, feeling her naked skin under his furious fingers, and when she opened her legs he pinioned her against the slippery tiles until she cried out and sank her nails into his back, and the sharpness of copper sang in the air.

Afterwards, Daine sat up and picked up the towel, then threw the dirty fabric into the corner. "I'm still not going to marry you."

"Good. I don't have the stamina." He retorted, but neither of their words held the anger they had felt before. He heard her laugh, saw her shake her head, and then she started filling up the bath again.

"If we ever get clean it'll be a miracle." She said, ruefully looking at the handprints on her skin. Taking a deep breath, she met his eyes and added, "When we do, we need to go back to Corus."

"Where people talk." He repeated. The girl nodded, and there was a vein of iron in her voice.

"Yes. If we're scared of that, then we really should be ashamed."


	32. Splinters

It was after midnight by the time they reached the city, and so apart from the guards who bowed them into the castle grounds they barely saw a living soul. Corus seemed eerily quiet at that time of night; the streets were rigorously swept and the street walkers who usually peered at night walkers from doorways ducked away as soon as they saw that the two travellers were not their quarry. Very few people slept on the streets, but even they were hiding away from the light rain which plagued the buildings.

Daine felt the soft droplets soaking through her clothes. The fabric stuck in clammy folds to her skin and the girl shivered, thinking of the mist which had carried the siren immortals into the villagers' minds. Although the sirens had promised not to do it again, she couldn't help imagining the ease with which they could seep into the heart of this city.

Perhaps that was why the streets were quiet, although she doubted it. Now that the war was over the people slept like the dead, able to let their guards down for the first time in years and live the dream of peacetime. That was the fantasy of the naïve; the more realistic sleepers dreamed with one hand still on a blade, and one eye still cracked open. The immortals had invaded more than strangers' minds: they had sapped away these people's hard-won peace of mind.

Numair had seen his companion shiver, but he reasoned that she was simply tired. Once Daine had made the decision to return she had worked with almost feverish impatience, speaking to scores of animals and scouting the route ahead long before they needed to know about its dangers. She had pushed Cloud to move faster than the poor pony was used to, and one of the girl's legs was purpling with a petulant hoof print. She had apologised for her haste, but the contrite words had been rather grudging. Daine hated being frightened, and now that she had a solution for her fear she was determined to confront it as soon as possible.

The man simply followed her. There wasn't much else he could do, or would have wanted to do. It was a rarity to see Daine following something so single-mindedly that she was prepared to upset Cloud. He would have followed Daine just to enjoy the grumpy pony's horrified expression, even if he hadn't been fascinated by what the girl had said about her magic. It was only after these two thoughts that he realised, with a flash of snide humour, that he would have followed her to the Roof of the World to pick pomegranates if she had taken into her head to go.

Still, seeing her shiver and look around the shining streets with shadowed eyes, he took her hand and pulled her away from the path which lead to the moat, guiding her instead towards the guest wing. She followed him with only a scowl of argument, and rubbed her eyes sleepily with her free hand. As stubborn as Daine could be, the Wildmage was far too clever to confront a threat without a good night's sleep.

The difference between those two characteristics crystallised in Numair's mind for a while: the frightened girl and the stubborn mage. He twisted the thought around, wondering where it had come from. He remembered what she had said the last time they had been here. 'In their eyes I'm half an animal, and all a weak, emotional woman.' It was pure idiocy. He would have laughed at the idea if he hadn't been so furious. But now, in the stillness of the rain and the darkness, he was surprised to find that he agreed. Oh, not with the vicious insults she had hurled at herself. She was no weaker than he was. But he saw the polarity of her character and knew that her admission seemed truly apt.

She chose to be one or the other. Daine was afraid, and so the Wildmage took over. The Wildmage grew tired, broken, sick of fighting hopeless battles, and she handed each nightmare dispassionately over to the girl so that she could cry them out in her sleep. The real Daine was somewhere between those two creatures, chewing on her lip as she carefully decided who she needed to be each day. She was too clever to try to fool her oldest friend, but he sometimes caught her switching from confident, brash warmage to shy teenage girl as she spoke at court or to the Riders.

It was a trick that worked well – the Wildmage was ageless, and terrifying; The girl was young, soft spoken and about as threatening as a dormouse. One of them made friends easily, the other helped her to survive. It was just disconcerting to see the odd moments when she was caught by surprise, frozen and vulnerable, before some part of her snapped back into place.

He suspected that she was being the mage today, although when she was tired the mask fell from her eyes. Or perhaps she only let it slip when he was nearby. There was something oddly comforting in that thought, although as he took down a torch to light their way through the corridors Numair couldn't help wondering if she wore a third mask around him that he had never been able to see past.

"Whatever you're thinking, you'd best stop it." She said, yawning widely. "I swear I can hear the cogs in your mind going 'click'."

Numair smiled at that and squeezed her hand, feeling the rough, very worldly callouses on her palms. He didn't have to invent more things to be worried about. Out of everything in his life, this part seemed utterly correct. Everything else…

Everything else became horribly apparent as soon as they got to their quarters and found the door nearly hanging off its hinges. Daine whistled softly and ran her fingertips along the frame. "They must have really wanted to talk to one of us."

"I suppose they weren't too pleased when they found out they'd been tricked."

"That, or one of the librarians wants those overdue books back." She said with a short laugh. When Numair shot her a sharp look she laughed again and shrugged. "What? It's not like they're still going to be in there. I want to go to bed."

He blocked her way and ignored her muttered curse as she folded her arms and started tapping her foot against the floor. Summoning his gift, he pressed one hand to the door handle and concentrated on the splintered patch of wood that could only have been damaged by an angry boot.

"The mice say it was a man. Dark hair, expensive clothes. They say he smelled of wine." Daine said flatly from behind him, her voice still baited with impatience. "Can I go to sleep now?"

"Not until I know his name." Numair regained his concentration and focused on the door. Finding the odd seam of light that still held the memory of being whole, he reformed the damage in his mind and pulled the image from the door, making the part of it that had once been living wood remember being hurt. The images swam in front of his eyes like ghosts, and he waved the smoky shadows away impatiently until one shape darted across the corridor and stopped. Numair froze the memory and pulled the shadow forwards, pressing it with his gift until it sharpened into focus. Then he stopped, panting, and opened his eyes to study the image in front of him.

Daine looked up at the floating grey head with interest, poking a finger into the smoke and watching it coil around her palm. "This is a pretty trick."

Numair shook his head, feeling beads of sweat dewing on his forehead as he concentrated on the man's face. It had always been a difficult spell, and he had to rub his eyes wearily before he realised the head's unfocused appearance was just because of his bleary eyes. "Do you recognise him?"

"No. Maybe." She bit her lip and looked more closely at the face, and then shook her head. "I'm sorry, I don't think I do. I'll remember him, though."

"I don't know him either." The man admitted, and waved a hand to banish the ghost back into its memory.

The door groaned, and he thought the spell had made the wood crumble even more before he realised Daine had pushed it open and was stepping through. She gave a cry of disgust, and he heard her stepping carefully over the chaos which the intruder must have left behind. As soon as Numair moved into the room, the girl slammed the door shut behind him and bolted it back onto the frame with the thick iron bars that Numair usually forgot were even there. The latch was hanging off the frame by a splinter, and Daine looked at it in some anger before she shrugged and threw the key out of the hole it had left and into the corridor.

Numair used his gift to light the fire, and then used the larger flame to light a candle. He picked up a second candle and winced as the wax pillar crumbled in his hand. When he picked up the candlestick that had held it the bronze frame was warped beyond recognition. The room looked even worse by candlelight. Hardly anything had escaped unscathed.

Daine caught sight of something gleaming under the mess and pushed aside a shattered vase to unearth her spare quiver. Every single arrow had been snapped, the feathers cut from the shafts and the arrow points scattered through the detritus. She grit her teeth and dug deeper, knowing before her hands closed around the bow that they would have broken it, too. To her relief the wooden frame was untouched, although the string had been snapped and the sights torn free. She held it closer for a moment, feeling the rough craftsman's marks her grandda had left there years before, and then slid it into the quiver that was still strung across her back. It clacked against her father's bow, and the noise made her head hurt.

"They didn't take anything." She said, her voice bitter. "They ruined our things and tore up your books but the mice say they left with empty hands. Even if we knew who it was, we could hardly arrest them for making a mess of the place."

"I assume that was the idea." The man said dryly, righting a chair and then dropping it again when he saw the wicker seat had been kicked through. "And neither your mice, nor the spell I cast, would count as good evidence against them."

"What about hiring those assassins to kill everyone?" Daine asked, her voice fierce. "I'm fair sure that's against the law, at least!"

"Perhaps. But we don't know it's the same person."

"Who else would it be?" She looked around at him with an expression of pure disbelief. Numair shook his head, tugging at his nose as he tried to think.

"I know, I know Daine. But… but that won't convict them, either. We only have one man's word about who hired the mercenaries. Duke Baird will take him to court, but then it will turn into a farce. The word of a bandit against one of the highest lords in the kingdom?" He sighed and looked around. "We should have come back sooner. I was stupid to think that one ambush would be the end of it. They've given up on the villagers, at least, but now they've had enough time to plan whatever revenge comes next. I doubt that will stop at breaking into my rooms."

"The sirens." Daine said, her face going pale. "Do you think they…?"

Numair laughed at that, shaking his head again. "No, I think their bravery extends as far as paying a few coins and tearing up a few books. The immortals will be safer than we are, for the next few days."

"Safer?" She looked around the room. "I think they've done plenty enough. Aren't you angry?"

He made an odd noise and tugged at his nose. "Of course I am. But they've done no real damage. There's plenty of things they could have done which they didn't. The windows aren't smashed, your bow wasn't burned in the fire… it could have been worse. I think it's a warning. You know." He waved a hand idly at the splintered remains of a table. "Make amends, or see what happens next."

Daine made an annoyed noise and stomped off to the bedroom. She knew that he was right, but she was so tired and angry that all she wanted to do was get away from the mess. Somehow, if she closed her eyes, she thought, she wouldn't care that half of their clothes were torn into rags meters away. She couldn't bear to think of the state of her own room. Throwing her pack down onto the bed, she pulled out the shirt she had been sleeping in since they had left the city and shook out the wrinkles with irritated haste. "I wish you weren't such a know-it-all sometimes, Numair. Your predictions are always so… so bad."

"Ominous?" He asked, following her. She huffed out a sigh and nodded, but her voice was fiercely defiant.

"We're not really in danger. They wouldn't dare attack us."

"Not physically, no." He said, and if his prediction had been ominous the dark cast of his eyes made his next words far more so. "But we have other weaknesses now, don't we?"

Daine was too tired to understand for a moment, and then remembered Alanna telling her that Numair made his affection for her so obvious that Ozorne would see it as a weakness. She paled and fixed her face in a scowl. "You don't make me weak. I'm not your weakness."

"You don't know that, love. You've never fought this kind of battle before. I think we have to be ready." Numair said, and brushed a strand of her hair back away from her angry eyes with a rueful smile. "You know how it starts, sweetling."

"People talk." She sighed, looking away. He nodded, and his own voice was bitter.

"People talk. And now, people _will_ talk."

888


	33. Offering

It is easy to be loved.

It is far easier to be loved by a god. It was almost too easy – as Weiryn knew all too well. It had preyed upon his thoughts as he crept closer to the Beltane fires, and it troubled him.

All forest gods stalked the mortal realms on festivals, summoned by the crude rituals of renewal which the mortals scratched out of their ancestors' stories with every poor harvest. How many ignorant girls lay in the dirt, their blood spilled by desperate men whose frenetic rutting hid its sordid lust beneath the stink of incense and the tuneless droning of hags? Yet these were the rituals of the seed and the earthen womb, and the gods which the summoned were bound to the rites and sacrifices however they were perverted by the darkest of mortal whims.

Weiryn remembered the purity that had come before, when the smoke smelled of burned antler velvet and apple blossom. Now his flaring nostrils smelled only flesh, but he was still forced to obey. He balked at their demands, though, and despite the compulsions which their chantings forced into his heart he often turned away from their fires.

Each Beltane he prowled the mortal realms with his loins aching, his ears tortured by the thick moans of each woman who called his name in their delirious cresting passions. He saw other gods, his brothers and sisters, creeping into the darkest eyes and sinking into the warmest flesh. It would have been so easy to copy them, to renew the land in a few beastlike thrusts and spill his blessings forth with his seed into some gasping mortal shell, but some part of him detested the idea. His nature was so perfectly poised between the human and animal hunter that didactic contest was normal; while the beast in him growled and hungered, the human drew him back, and for many decades the human was allowed to win.

Love – the pure love of the soul – was also peculiar to him. Having rejected lust, his instinct drew him towards the pursuit of other prey. He was a hunter who had learned to respect antler and boar tusks; any prey could turn and attack, and through the centuries the god had gathered wariness about him with every scar. What was this new prey to defend itself with? He watched them as the years drifted past, seeing women whose words were as sharp as talons and men whose adoration stagnated like a seeping wound. Of all he found much to love, but his trysts were over as soon as the snows fell. The mortals hid from the forests, and even the trees forgot them until the spring. Weiryn left his paramours in the cold and turned his heart to the new year, and before the snows thawed he barely remembered their faces.

He stopped searching after half a century, and slowly returned to the rites which he had so abhorred in the years before. He watched the new generations and his heart turned cold. They all loved him, in their small and selfish ways. If all they demanded of him was an hour of his time, a chance to subjugate themselves under his feral, ruthless body, then so be it. He felt an indifferent pleasure, nothing more, and took the sacrifices of innocence and wantonness with the same blank brutality. For fifty years he only demanded that they did not tell him their names, nor show him their faces. He took their bodies in the roaring firelight with the demanding, silent ruthlessness of the stag.

It was easy to be loved, if that was all that your passions demanded. Weiryn did love them, for all of their selfish ignorance. They knew that they were loved because they could not conceive of being unloved; they took it for granted, and only resented it when they thought it was gone. In turn, their devotion called him to them. For generations it was enough, and the animal in him was content, and he forgot that he had ever yearned for anything better.

Sarra was not intended for him. His eye had already fallen upon the girl they had chosen. He could smell the musk of the leaves in her oily hair and the spices and sex on her skin. She was drunk or drugged, as some of the offerings were - some of the priests disliked risking the most important ritual of the year on some maidenly shyness; some of the women preferred to pass the night in a haze. This girl danced from man to man with the sickening dizziness of one captivated by the senses alone.

Weiryn felt a heady richness in the cool air, and he drew back into the shadows to watch. Every one of his footfalls was silent, and he did not stir a cobweb from the trees. The girl laughed by the fire, and the goddess in her screamed out her own feral glee. Weiryn took another pace back into the forest. He had no appetite to feast upon the same altar as his sister tonight. Let her have her lust and her revels; his rites demanded the mortal's bodies, not their sanity. Feeling cold disgust sicken his stomach against the fresh raw meat of his last kill, he was about to turn away when he saw something else.

A girl ran into the firelight, her arms reaching out to the swaying sacrifice. Although the girl was beautiful, her face was twisted in anger and her dress was old and patched. Clearly, she had not meant to join in the dancing. It seemed that she could not bear to watch the other woman's ruination. Ignoring the drunken jeers of the other villagers, she dragged the girl away from one of the priests and drew her into her own arms.

There she held her still until the mania eased; as the sacrifice's laughter turned into frightened tears, the goddess streamed out of her like velvet smoke and drifted away into the heat of the fire. The patched girl seemed to feel the difference immediately, although she looked a little bewildered about how she knew the other girl had changed. Glaring at the people around her, she helped the other girl up and marched her away from the firelight.

The next year Weiryn returned to the same village. He had to admit that he was intrigued; the girl had waited until the most basic rites had been carried out before she stopped the ritual, and she had felt the goddess even if she could not see her. It was unusual for a mortal to see so clearly, and yet still follow the primitive customs of her own tribe. He made his way to the fire without needing to be summoned, and found an outcrop of rocks from which he could see the clearing.

To his surprise the girl was there, as if she had been waiting for him to arrive. She was wearing a finer dress this time, and her golden hair was brushed out and braided with ribbons, but it was obvious that she didn't want to join in the dancing. She was spying on the clearing with a cross expression on her face. The god might have told her not to worry – that the goddess was not there, and her choking perfume was half a continent away – but it was not in his nature to make the first sound. He climbed up the rock on silent feet, and waited.

The girl looked around and jumped in shock. Her angry eyes swept up and down, and she pointed scornfully at his head. "What kind of costume is that? This isn't even deer country!"

He could not fashion a response. He could have told her that there was a herd of deer less than fifty miles away, but he vaguely remembered that mortals saw that as a large distance. He touched his horns, remembering the crude crowns the mortals sometimes made to wear at the fires, and smiled ruefully. "I've come from a long way away."

"Then keep walking. There's nothing of interest here." Her voice was curt, but polite. "The big fires are in the next town over, to the North."

"I know." He said it without thinking, and found himself smiling when she scoffed and folded her hands. She was acting as if he was bragging, when in all honesty he could feel the heat of those fires burning in his heart as strongly as any other fire which knew his name. Instead of responding to her mockery, he looked over at the fire where the villagers were starting to dance, shifting between partners without caring who they were with. "Why aren't you down there?"

She shrugged. "Tomorrow I'll be nursing all their sick heads and sore stomachs. It doesn't make me want to join in. I don't think the gods will notice one less woman."

"You never know who the gods are looking at." He told her, and she smiled at him. It was an odd, bright expression which seemed to spill from her blue eyes like light.

"Well, if they're looking at me I don't want them to see me drunk and gorging myself sick. They must be pretty strange gods if they think that's worth looking at. I wonder that any of the priests think the gods would want to watch something as messy as all that."

The god laughed, and shook his head in some amazement, and when she looked back at the fires he slipped back into the trees. As he carried out his duties that night his mind kept bringing him back to those bright eyes, and he missed as many shots as he struck. He thought the memories would fade as he made his way back into the divine realms, but even as he stalked the cool glades of the forests he called home he could not forget her words. Each one lingered, and the snows fell and melted and he still remembered her. How could he? How was one short conversation more meaningful than any arcane rite he had answered? And yet he could not help it, and found himself wishing he had said something else, or lingered, or simply stepped a little closer to her.

 _Do you want her?_ The sky taunted him. Sometimes it was his own voice. That was bad enough, but when his sister of the wanton arts started calling out to him he had to block his ears and banish her from his lands. She came when beckoned, that siren of the flesh, and as often as he sent her away he called her back with the heat of his dreams or the longing of the long hours. He cursed, shouted, even fought the witch in his anger, but her laughter always cut him more sharply than any bared dagger.

The next festival never seemed to arrive, but when it did his heart raced so fast that he could barely think. After so many centuries he could not understand this feeling, and he was as angered by it as he was excited. He desperately wanted to forget the girl, but his feet found their way to the clearing and he froze, captivated, at the sight of her.

The goddess had reached her first. Of course she had; she could slip through the realms with the soft ease of sliding between silken sheets. How she must have crept along the girl's body, brushing her skin with soft, delicate promises before kissing her forehead and binding her to her calling. The mark blazed on the girl's head under the crown of leaves and flowers she wore, and the women around her laughed and lead her over a path of willow vines and dock leaves and petals. They lead her to the firelight, and she stepped up to a large flat stone as they poured honey and oil over the small, crude statue of a man.

For the first time he could remember, Weiryn did not know what to do. He could not remember ever wanting a mortal so badly. The women helped her onto the altar and he saw her beauty, the silhouette of her body as they drew her shift away and anointed her with blood and honey and made the markings which offered her to the gods.

She was beautiful, but that was not all. He wished that it was all, so that he could leap across the clearing and take her right there with the blood of the fresh kill still warm on her skin. He fought the desire, struggled against the beast, and managed to make himself see the things the goddess concealed.

He saw the calluses on the girl's hands from hard work, and the worried lines between her eyes. He smelled the acrid medicines and herbs which she had made for so long that their stench always bled from her skin, and beneath that there was the dull, rotting smell of death that all mortal creatures carried with them. He saw the hazy blackness masking her blue eyes, and he made himself understand the frightened tremors in her hands and lips.

Detestable mortals! Even the girl that she had rescued was standing nearby, laughing and scattering delicate petals into the stinking mud. The healer was the most precious creature they possessed, and she too was to be spoiled. How could they be so cruel?

It was all for him, this offering. He loathed it as much as he ever had, but he had been summoned here, and so he stepped into the firelight. They took a step back when they saw him, and he let them see him as he truly was. His eyes burned as obsidian coals, and divinity scoured his face like harsh sand, making it frozen and cruel.

"Leave." He growled, and when they did not move he gathered the girl up in his arms and carried her away. Her heat pressed against his skin and his resolve wavered even then. Setting her down, he glared into her unfocused eyes and had to look away, afraid of what he might do.

"Don't you want her?" The girl's mouth moved, but it was not her voice which spoke but something richer, huskier, the voice of a harlot coaxing a lover into her bed. Weiryn cursed and shut his eyes, and felt a soft hand creeping up his thigh, the languorous fingers torturing him with their lightest touch, caressing and coaxing.

"No." He croaked, and then he repeated it again with more command and opened his eyes. The girl had not moved; she had fallen asleep in some drugged haze. The goddess sat between them. Her full, naked breasts were painted with the same crude markings as the girl's, and she smelled of blood and honey. The goddess had no name, but every name belonged to her once it had been moaned from gasping lips. Tonight was her festival as much as his own, for without her wanton insanity the hope of renewal would soon be smothered in shame. Weiryn knew her well, but she was too fickle to pay any attention to the gods who thought clearly. Now she pressed closer, and slid her hand between his legs and smiled as she caught his earlobe between her lips.

"You want her." She moaned it into his ear, coaxing him to madness with her hands and her scent and her shallow breathing. He tried to push her away, but his hands sank into nothing but perfumed smoke. She laughed and shook her head, the sprite of desire and restraint split in two. She drank the sacrifices of wild abandon, of sleepless nights in starving passion, and the hunter god finally desired a mortal enough for the goddess to infect him with her madness.

"Let's work together." She murmured, drawing his hand onto the fullness of her breast and parting her lips in a moue of pleasure. "Let me have your lust, dear one, and I will bless this land at your side."

"I don't want you." He told her even as the hunger took him and the beast inside him roared. The goddess laughed, and he turned to her to find that she was gone. His hand was pressed against mortal skin, and the girl was soft and fragile in his arms, and it would have been so easy. He knew now, though, that this was not truly her. The girl he had dreamed about smelled of medicine and had faced him with defiant wit. It was the smoke and the offering that had poured the dizzy liquor of the wanton goddess into her blood.

He snatched his hand away, and it was as if a spell was waiting to be broken. His voice was choked, and it took him a moment to clear it.

"I don't want her." He said it clearly, rejecting this offering to the sky, and felt the curse of the land accepting his refusal. It would be a poor harvest, a bad hunting season and a difficult winter, but he had made his choice. The goddess nipped at him playfully and her scent drifted away; as soon as his heartbeat had slowed she had grown bored and forgotten her desire. Such was her nature.

The mortal girl opened her eyes, but she seemed to think that she was still dreaming. She looked up at his forbidding divine form with no fear. He carried her to the lake and washed the runes from her skin, feeling his ties to her breaking away as each sigil disappeared.

"Why did you do it?" He asked.

"Someone died. They blamed me." Her words were sleepy and simple, as if she thought he must already know the answer and was reminding him. "They said that if I did this they would let me keep my home."

"A few sticks of wood." He snorted, thinking less of her. She shook herself more awake and glared.

"My ma and da built it. I was born there the day my mama died. They have no right to burn it."

Weiryn made a noncommittal sound and scooped up a handful of the clear lake water. It tasted metallic. The silence did not confuse the girl; with that peculiar insight she had shown before she understood his mood and explained: "They need the farms to do well this year. We're low on grain stores and for two years the harvest has failed. I guess I eat as much bread as anyone else, so maybe I did it for that, as well."

"Learn to hunt." He offered, and was stunned when she laughed. How dare she mock him! Then she turned her face to the moonlight, and he saw that she was simply enjoying her own thoughts.

"I'm a healer, not a hunter. I gather berries but not enough for everyone. Others try but they don't know which ones are poison. Ellen died because she wanted mushrooms, and she thought they were all the same, so she picked the biggest ones because she was hungry." For the first time the girl's detached, sleepy expression faded, and she looked as serious as she had when she pulled the girl from the fire. "She died from ignorance – her own, but also mine for not knowing the antidote – and she died from hunger. If things carry on as they are she won't be the last person to die. It's right to offer myself for a chance at fixing that."

Her pragmatism astounded him. He had refused her offering already, but now he felt slighted – no, offended! – by her callousness. As much as he disliked the ancient ritual, he respected its motives: the pairing of flesh and forest, desire and hunger and the thin light of rebirth flickering amongst the darkest paths of the human imagination. There was a poetry in it which was his law – and whether he admired it or abhorred it, it would always bind him.

But here – this woman – described the ritual like a tradesman selling goods at market. Her goods were sound: she surrendered herself willingly, if not happily, and had followed the ritual to the letter. It was not her fault that he had turned against her. He could not fault her, but he would have rejected her again for her callousness had he known. She believed in her patron god completely. She just did not love him.

"How does… the blessing… how does it work?" She asked him with the first hint of uneasiness in her voice. "I agreed, and they gave me wine and told me that when I woke up it would all be over. I tasted something else in the wine."

The god pointed at the water which had washed all of her markings away. "The river took it."

She blinked and then shrugged, accepting this impossibility as easily as she had told him her story. "Then, I am awake. I'm fair sure whatever is going on, we haven't finished."

He was silent, and the girl's bright stream of words faded away. She looked around and then raised herself out of the water, shrugging off her nakedness with the resigned indifference of a healer. Just as her faith was simply trade, Sarra's body was simply skin.

"This is Whitestone Lake." She spoke slowly. "I know this place. Why are we here?"

"I took you away from those… people." He stopped himself from using a crueller word, but she heard the anger in it and looked puzzled.

"Weren't they just doing what you wanted?"

He laughed at that, and the mortal girl took a step back. Her fear made no sense until the god realised that she did not understand the joke. She had been confident before because she had thought that every moment of her bargain had already been planned. She had known what to expect – but he had broken the rules, and now she had no idea what to do next.

"Have you ever been in love?" He asked her. She shook her head, eyes wide, and the god laughed again. "I envy mortal love. I love easily, and completely, and painfully, and then it fades. I love mortals who die before even a century passes. I forget my lovers who live for years. I love every person that your priests tell me to love, and every year they bring me more of them. They do not feed my heart, but my pride. Would you want that, little mortal?"

She shook her head, but her voice was stubborn. "My name is Sarra."

He bowed his head a little. "Sarra, you did not answer my question."

"Bless the fields and maybe I will." She replied, unfazed by his speech. "People will die if you don't."

He knew that people died anyway – it was only a matter of time – but he suspected that this peculiar creature would scold him for saying such a thing.

"Your offering is not acceptable to me." He said stiffly.

The girl looked down at her naked body, her face set in the same pragmatic scowl that she had worn when she bartered with him. Then she looked up and examined him with the same careful attention. His eyes had followed her own, and by the time she looked back up at him he had to resist the urge to hide his arousal. There was no point trying; they both shrugged off the lie that he had told and smiled ruefully at each other.

"If you don't want me, then at least give me some clothes." She gestured again to her nakedness and laughed brightly at his expression. "You can forget me as soon as you like, but I reckon you'd remember where you lost your best cloak."

"So now you want a blessing and a gift?" He retorted in the same tone. "What's next: a pile of gold?"

"Would you give it to me?"

"Wishes always come in threes. You've only made two."

"But you're not a Djinn." She reminded him, smiling. Accepting the cloak which he handed out to her, she looked as if she was going to continue teasing him, and then her voice grew serious. She didn't sound hurt or offended, but simply confused: "I wish you'd tell me why you don't want me."

"I do want you." He explained bluntly, "But you'd have to want me, too."

"I want you." She said it too quickly and blushed when the god rolled his eyes.

"You want only what I can give to you."

"Oh, and I had a whole drunken evening to get to know you! How far did you expect me to get?" She huffed in exasperation. He smiled thinly.

"The others…"

"The others! What did they do, lie back and open their legs?" She sounded scornful. "Do you want me to desire _that_ from you? You'd do just as well finding your precious offerings in a whore house!"

He reddened and struggled for an answer. Finding none, he instead looked up at the sky and saw the first glimmerings of dawn. He had spent the whole night arguing with this wretched mortal, and he hadn't answered a single prayer or blessed a meter of land.

"I have to go." Weiryn said, and then looked back into her defiant eyes. They were the brilliant blue of the sky through verdant forest leaves, and he struggled to look away. "I shall return here tomorrow, for my cloak."

She watched him disappear into the trees and her scowl deepened. "Fine! I guess I'll just walk home!"

To her amazement the god laughed, and her eyes were dazzled by a strange glimmer of silver light. She dragged them open expecting to see the rise of the village before her, but she was still beside the lake. Only the odd colours of the dawn light greeted her. She was about to shout something even ruder after the god when she noticed soft fabric under her feet. She looked down and saw the most beautiful kid boots tied to her feet, and soft gloves which fit her hands perfectly. The hunting garb under his cloak was also lined with fur, as warm and as beautiful as that which the lords wore in their mountain keeps.

Sarra smiled, hid the expression from the watching forest, and turned to walk home.

888

It was a compulsion which drew Weiryn to Snowsdale the next night. Already, the fields were starting to turn: the altitude had coaxed in a bitter wind, and many of the wheat husks had been shocked by the cold. They would rot when they warmed up, and would be useless even as seed for the next year. Weiryn saw it all with a shade of uneasiness. Now that there was a day's work between himself and the fires he saw his choices for their stubborn pride. He had quarrelled with his sister, nothing more. If he had been negligent it was her fault as much as his own. Not that there was any blame to lay at his feet. If he chose to curse, then it was his divine right. He repeated this to himself as he returned to the side of the mortal, and did not admit that she had captured his mind beyond any petty pride. Naturally, he was only climbing the mountain to retrieve his cloak.

She had washed it, and dried it in air which smelled of lavender, and she held it out to him with a shy smile the moment that he stepped towards the lakeside.

"There." The mortal said, and her smile trembled a little. "You didn't even have to ask for it. If you turn around now and keep walking you could forget me in a few hours, just like you said."

He scratched his chin awkwardly, forgetting to even look at the bundle of cloth. It smelled of her. He would remember her every time lavender bloomed. Weiryn forgot that he was proud and strong and wronged. He shook his head, watching her shyness as she lowered the bundle, and then he reached forward and kissed her.

She raised her hand to his cheek and her fingers were light against his skin, and the kiss was never anything more than sweet and shy, and as soon as Weiryn realised what he had done he blushed and pulled away. She kept her hand on his cheek, gentle and soothing, and drew him down to rest her forehead against his own.

"I thought about what you said." She murmured. "Who was the last person to really know who you are?"

"Mother Flame." He admitted. Sarra drew back, and her eyes were full of pity, not love. Pity was something else mortals had never felt for him. They were usually too concerned with their own short lives to do much besides envy the immortals. This woman had death following her just a few years away, and yet she looked at him with complete empathy.

That night they walked all the way around the lake, helping each other over the more difficult trails and sharing every thought that came into their heads. Weiryn did not speak of his duties or the tasks which he was neglecting, and Sarra did not ask. Without the perfumed goddess haunting their every touch they found an easy companionship which demanded nothing from each other. After their kiss Sarra had taken his hand, and it felt simple to walk with their fingers entwined, more like children than adults, more like friends than lovers. They did not try to kiss each other again.

"The festival ends tomorrow." Sarra said when they found themselves back beside the discarded cloak. She picked it up and brushed soft white sand from its folds. For the first time since they had begun their long walk together, she looked at Weiryn and seemed to remember that he was a god. Her fleeting look of awe turned into a wry laugh as she held out the cloak. "I should have known you would prefer this offering. Do you only accept things that you already own?"

He looked at her narrowly and pushed the bundle away, his words icily formal as if the last hours had never happened. "This offering is not acceptable."

"Hag's bones!" She burst out, and threw the cloak into the dirt. His coldness had clearly hurt her, and for the first time he understood that he had truly wounded her with every refusal. Her voice grew bitter. "What on earth do you want?"

The god looked up at the rising sun and rolled his shoulders back in a shrug. "You'll have to walk home." He told her, and then he was gone.

888

On the third night the clearing was darker. The moon had shrunk down into a thin sliver in the overcast sky. The cloak was lying on the ground where the girl had thrown it, and a film of dew and cobwebs made it shimmer strangely against the dull, flat sand.

"Take it." Sarra said from the darkness. "Take it and go away."

He could see her when he shaped his eyes into the keen eyes of the night hunters. She wore her plain, patched clothes, and her hair was caught up in severe braids. The stink of lye and soap clung to her with the weariness of a day of hard work. Some of her nails were broken, and Weiryn understood. Like himself, she had thrown herself into her work all day. He had stalked the realms like a feral cat, bringing down countless beasts until he could have bathed in their blood. She had worked so furiously that she had not noticed that she was grazing her hands. He saw all of this at a glance, but it was only when he stepped closer that he realised that her face was wet with tears.

"Are you crying?" He asked, idiotically. She looked up with a furious expression.

"No!"

Weiryn sat down beside her and studied her more closely, feeling an odd curiosity lurking in his concern. She scowled and shoved him away, but when her hands sank into his tunic she sniffled and started weeping again. The god instinctively wrapped his arm around her shoulders and wished he knew the right words to say. It would have helped to know why on earth she was crying. Such a thing had never happened around him before. He doubted that Sarra would be comforted by him asking one of his siblings for advice, and so he stayed silent.

"Three nights." The girl sniffed, and was it anger or amusement in her voice? "In the stories it's always three night. And I got three wishes, didn't I?"

"I only granted two." He offered: "I couldn't tell you why I didn't want you, because there is no way to answer an untruth."

She laughed shakily and shook her head, and somehow she was still crying. "You didn't grant the first one either. They say the crops are rotting in the fields. The animals in the forest are all sickening and starving and even the goats' milk is drying up. We could have stopped that."

For the first time he felt ashamed – truly ashamed. He cared not for his divine duties, but suddenly he cared about the handful of mortals in this cold, insignificant mountain village. They had chosen him, of all the gods, to bless their fires. As he struggled with the unfamiliar emotion, he noticed the girl's expression and realised that she might say exactly the same thing. Was she upset because she thought she had failed?

"It's not your fault." He told her. "I would not have blessed anyone."

Such selfishness was an astounding thing for a god to confess, and he felt the sting of it keenly. Sarra barely reacted to his absolution, but she caught up his hand and held it. The gesture was jarring.

She asked with her sharp insightfulness: "Are gods allowed to be so human?"

He laughed at that and shook his head. "Only if we don't get caught. We can curse a whole village, but we're not allowed to admit that we did it out of petty anger. Mortals are supposed to believe that we're stronger than that. Gods are little clockwork toys which will bless mortals if they wind us up the right way, nothing more."

"That's sad." She didn't sound convinced, but the sympathy in her voice was real enough. He shook his own head, but the gesture was far more animalistic: the wary action of a stag gauging the wind blowing through the trees. Sarra watched him with her serious, level eyes, and Weiryn decided it would be worse to misunderstand her than to cross some inscrutable mortal taboo.

"Why were you crying?"

She shot him a disparaging glare. The god reddened. This was probably something that he was supposed to have worked out. The woman wiped the tears from her eyes and shrugged wryly, avoiding the question.

"Will you grant me my third wish before you go?"

"Am I going?" He asked diffidently. She looked close to tears again, but before her eyes welled up she laughed and raised her chin.

"I'm fair sure you won't be coming back next year." She spoke tartly, plainly. "So you'd best go sooner and give me more time to pick mushrooms and work out how to feed a whole village with them."

The god scowled at this assault and stood up to pick up the cloak. At the very last moment he turned around to make an angry retort, and caught himself in her brilliant blue eyes, and his words choked into a bitter tirade. He told her everything that had happened with the goddess and the wretched townsfolk, and his fierce refusal to bow to any of the selfish creatures and give in to their demands.

"They had no right – no right! – to make you do it! How dare they offer you up to me like a mindless slave? They had no reason to summon me in the first place. Wanton knew that, how much I hate being twisted up in their perverted games…"

"But you're the stag." Sarra interrupted him for the first time in long minutes. Weiryn wheeled around and snorted derisively. His eyes blazed like coals, and for the first time she took a step back and looked fearfully upon the face of the angry god.

"I hunt. I am the predator for the weak and the prey for the strong. My fires are the charnel grounds of blood and bone, not the hot earth of this barren soil. It was your kin who made me what I abhor – and your offerings which disgust me. I will not be blamed for your ignorance!" He roared this last part, but the mortal did not flinch.

"Why were you even here?" Her voice was so mulish that it broke through Weiryn's tirade. He frowned.

"I told you. I was summoned."

"This year." She agreed. "But you were here last year, too. It was the mother's turn to be worshipped, not yours."

He flushed and kicked at the ground, looking smaller and more uncomfortable now that his immortal fury had ebbed away. The mortal smiled and stepped forward, hesitating before touching his shoulder and meeting his unsteady glare. Weiryn shivered, thinking that mortals were terrifying in their odd certainties. This woman had barely been alive for long enough to watch a sapling grow into a tree, and yet she could see so much just by looking into his eyes.

"I knew it was you." She spoke softly. "I knew you couldn't be a traveller. I wondered if you'd been watching me… hunting me." She smiled a little then and looked down, both shy and bold. "I liked the idea."

Weiryn did not answer. He had barely moved, but he raised one hand to where her palm touched his shoulder and traced the shape of her fingers. She blinked, looked away and then back, and blushed. A note of mischief crept into her voice, but she spoke with the same blunt pragmatism which, he realised, he was beginning to admire.

"I did not mind that they chose me for you. I was so nervous, but all of their silly chanting seemed so ridiculous that I couldn't be scared. The only thing I could think of was – would it be you? Was I right? I could have been wrong, but I did want to see you again and so I thought of that, and forgot to be scared. Then the liquor wore off and there you were! But you looked so severe and angry, and you were so rude!" She grinned as he shot her a sharp look and then shrugged. "Well, I told myself I had three days to see if you weren't a complete ass. Maybe in three hundred I could have made up my mind."

"You set a snare." He admired the ploy, respecting her as a fellow hunter. The mortal woman had moved through is mind like the simplest forest trail and set a trap with such skill that even he had blundered into it. For three nights he had told himself that she was a fool, or a tease, or a scold – all things which he knew were untrue the moment she smiled. Now it was clear that she had been testing him, searching for her own answers as avidly as he had searched for his own.

"Is that why you were crying?" He asked, "Because I was rude to you?"

She shook her head, and looked so miserable that he could not bear it. "I just don't want you to go away."

Weiryn took her hand then, and lead her into the trees, and under their nurturing branches he very simply explained that he was in love with her. The girl listened in silence, and she could not meet his eyes when she admitted that she felt the same way. It was a peculiar, solemn exchange which was quietly honest on his side, and shy on hers. They sat beside each other on a fallen tree for a long time, not looking at or touching the other, until Sarra raised her head and her eyes shone with tears.

"Will you grant me my last wish, before you leave me?"

He looked around, and ran his thumb along her cheek to catch the tears before they fell. There were too many, and she was weeping for him, and his heart felt so full that he could not bear it.

"Don't forget me like the others," She begged him. Against that broken note he felt the last of his divinity crumble away. He could not be a god, not around her. He loved her as a man, with the pure dying love of the mortals, and as he folded her in his arms he knew that he would never be able to let her go.

He took her under those trees, looking into her blue eyes and feeling the gentle, shy pressure of her hands on his back, the soft sweetness of her lips on his skin. She whispered his name – his true name – and he breathed in the scent of her body and the warm, dry leaves that they crushed under their gentle dance, and if he thought of smoke and blood it was only because this was so much better.

His huntress, this creature of snares and soft words, moved under him so sweetly that he felt only love. The goddess was far away, and even when his huntress's soft lips parted in pleasure her blue eyes never clouded. She rode him, giving herself to him without letting him take, sacrificing nothing but love upon his altar until he groaned and tried to pull away, thinking to dash his seed upon the ground.

"No," She whispered, and pulled him back into her arms, her embrace. "Let this be for you."

He kissed her, felt her hands draw his against her breasts and felt himself cresting, her words burning in his blood like flames. The goddess could have claimed him then, sobbing out the mortal's name with every surge, but Sarra's shining eyes were clear and when she closed them in pleasure he knew that the feeling was her own.

They lay upon the fallow ground, still entwined, and already he wanted her again. It was the insatiable, demanding passion of the stag, and for the first time he shared his human desire with the animal part of his nature and let it roar in his blood. Sarra caught her breath at the expression in his eyes and kissed him. He felt the blessing of life stirring within her even then.

"I am sorry." She said, and when she pressed her palm to her stomach he understood that she knew too. It had taken her only a few minutes to understand what had happened. "I shouldn't have done that."

"I had no chance to argue," He smiled and raised her in his arms, brushing broken leaves from her skin and letting his hands drift over her body with unabated desire. He had never wanted a woman a second time, nor felt any need to linger after the act was done. Sarra bit her lip and thought for a moment, and then unbelievably her mischievous practicality was back and she returned his embrace.

"I'm glad. I would have argued back. I'm fair sure it's rude to argue with a fertility god about such matters on his own day." She caught his lip between his teeth and then kissed him, more passionate now that her shyness was gone. "Take me again. I know you want me. I feel like I'm glowing."

"Is that your fourth wish?"

"My only wish." She breathed, and lowered her head to kiss his throat. "If it means I can keep you."

"I am not yours to own."

"Yes, you are." The mortal woman tangled her fingers into his hair, her body rearing up in lean power like a great cat which prowled the night, fluid and dangerous in the darkness. Her eyes blazed, and in that moment she was more than his equal, more than his mate, burning with human love and divine life into something far greater than any god could ever possess. "You are mine." She spoke strongly, her soft voice rich with power. "I claim you. I own your love, your body, your heart just as you own mine. You are my offering, and I am yours until the sun burns out."

He pressed her into the ground and rose over her, lowering his head like the stag and facing her down, pressing her to yield to him, to fear him. He let her see his love for him, the danger and the pain of it, the eternity that it bound her to, and she never trembled. She returned his fierceness without fear.

"This time for the land." He growled it, and she raised her body under him to let the animal claim her, and she was not afraid of his feral nature any more than she was cowed by his love for her. The land swallowed them in dust and sand and slick, warm earth and they felt it breathe, opening itself as desperately as she had, gasping with her every breath until it was too late for the god to do anything but snarl out his release into the starving land.

The fields bore twice their crop for ten generations. Daine was born in the spring.

888


	34. The New Game Begins

Daine collected the rest of her belongings the next morning, and coolly sent a message to the head steward to tell him that she no longer wanted the small set of rooms. They had been her home for the last five years, and she had expected the decision to trouble her, but that morning she was angry enough to slam the door shut behind her without a backwards glance. She took her half-empty bag and climbed up the grand staircase back to Numair's rooms. _Their_ rooms, she corrected herself with the first glow of pleasure she had felt since returning to the castle. She felt a wry satisfaction in the notion that the intruders' attack had finally convinced them to live together properly.

The intruders had broken into her rooms, as she had guessed the night before. What they had left behind them looked more like the ruins of a battle than anything she wanted to own. Her leather arm guards and tack had all been too strong to yield to the intruders' knives, but all of her clothes had been torn and soiled and most of her cabinets had been turned out. The beautiful gowns which Thayet had paid for had been ripped apart and scattered across the bedchamber, and the mattress had been slashed into tatters. Daine shuddered and turned into her workshop.

The tart smell of potions filled the air, making her gag as their acidic fumes burned the back of her throat. Some of them would be hard to replace, and she hoped that none of the animals who came to her had the deep abscesses or blood poisoning that her magic alone could not help. Without her medicines, she would only be able to repair damage, not fight off infections or the more virulent illnesses. She would have to spend hours collecting herbs and struggling over a hot flame, distilling and refining a few drops at a time, to replace them. All this was because some idiot had decided that she needed to be scared.

Daine noticed, with some satisfaction, that her animals had defended their haven. A few splashes of blood spoke of nipped ankles – although the potions which eked into the red liquid would make them impossible to trace. There was also the unmistakable stench of skunk spray in the air, and the girl wondered how long it had taken the intruder to scrub that delight from his selfish skin.

No matter. She could close the door and let the steward see the mess for himself, and let him work out why she had moved away. She was past caring about the things she used to own. The intruders had broken in just to prove that they could get away with it, and to scare them. Well, their first plan had worked, but their victims refused to be cowed. Both Daine and Numair had awoken that morning just as angry as they had been when they fell asleep, but with their minds refreshed they had immediately started to plan their response.

The first thing to do, they agreed, was to make their relationship as official and public as possible. If the intruders wanted to hurt them, they could easily hold a secret over their heads and blackmail them with it. Even Jolyon had said as much, when he had stumbled onto them back at the tower. They hadn't really kept anything secret, but there was a huge difference between letting their friends know that they were a couple and announcing it to every nosy gossip in the kingdom.

"It will be difficult." Numair sighed as he stacked the scattered books back into a bookcase. "It's like we're giving them permission to talk about us. I didn't want that."

Daine secretly thought that the books looked neater now than they ever had when her friend had been left to keep the rooms in his own chaos. The thought made her smile. "We're used to that. They talk about you turning people into trees and about me levelling palaces. Compared to those stories, this one will be fair boring."

"You'd be surprised." He said glumly, running his fingers along a scuffed cover. "When I slept with Yarissa her brother got into his cups and told his squire I liked to tie her to the bedposts. That was just after I turned that troll into granite, but no-one seemed to care about that. The rumours were all I heard from morning until night."

"And did you actually do it?" Daine asked, hiding a smile. Numair gave her a withering look and his voice grew aloof.

"I feel you are missing the point, magelet."

Daine pulled a face at him, and grinned when he turned back to his books with an exaggerated huff.

It only took an hour or so for the steward to discover the mess that had been her room, and when she heard the angry rapping on Numair's door Daine could guess who was there before she even opened it. It was difficult to calm the furious steward down enough to explain to him what had happened, and in the end she had to invite him into their rooms and show him that the same thing had happened here before he believed that she hadn't simply let her animals run riot.

The man raised his eyebrows at the story but said nothing; Daine suspected that this kind of attack was quite common in the palace. So many people lived so close together that arguments were bound to happen, and she had heard of people who had bought yapping dogs just to drown out their neighbour's equally obnoxious yowling cats.

The steward asked her if any of the spilled potions in her old rooms were dangerous, and smiled when she shook her head. It was hard, he said, to convince the cleaners to venture into mage workshops. Last year a woman had been scrubbing a stain from a table only to find her fingernails had started glowing bright blue. Mages sometimes forgot that their little experiments could backfire when mixed with even something as innocent as soap.

Daine assured him that her workshop was quite safe, and apologised again for the mess. He shrugged and nodded his head in a respectful bow just as Numair emerged from his own workshop. The mage greeted the steward and repeated Daine's apologies, looping his arm casually around her waist as he spoke. It was a natural gesture, and it was only when she saw the steward looking at them speculatively that Daine understood why Numair had done it. She might have only been staying here to be safe from the intruders; Numair was making quite sure that it was obvious why she was living with him.

"Don't do that." She said, pulling away as soon as the steward left. She blushed at Numair's confused expression and explained, "Don't play act like you want to touch me just because they're looking."

"I always want to touch you." He replied, surprised at her outburst, "I'm not play acting."

"But if you're just doing it to prove something to them…"

"Gods." He shook his head and kissed her forehead. "You have it backwards, sweetling. I've been stopping myself from getting too close. Now I don't have to pretend that I _don't_ want to touch you. I'm glad; it was driving me insane."

She couldn't help blushing at that, biting back the embarrassed laugh which bubbled to her lips and finding shelter in a tart retort. "Do you practice your besotted speeches, Numair?"

"Only the ones I think you'll believe." He raised her chin with one long finger and met her eyes with a smile. "I know your cynical mind, my love."

"I didn't believe a word of that." She said with a sly smile. "You said you couldn't even go a whole day without touching me, before, but you managed it."

"That's before I found out how much you love being touched." He leaned a little closer, deliberately keeping himself from kissing her, and ran his fingers lightly down her neck until her lips parted in a soft sigh. He lowered his voice. "I suspect your little game would drive us both mad if we played it now."

"How about a new game?" She asked, catching his lips and stealing a fleeting kiss before he drew back. His mischievous expression grew wary, but he raised his eyebrows in a question before he lowered his head to her neck and kissed his way lower. The girl bit back a moan when he knelt down and pushed her shirt apart, pressing his lips to her stomach.

"A game?" He reminded her, looking up with laughing eyes. Daine laughed a little breathlessly.

"What are you doing down there?"

"Proving I like touching you." He said archly, and ran his deft fingers up her body adding, " _All_ of you."

"Even without someone looking?" She teased. He pretended to think about it for a moment, and then shrugged and pulled a face at her. Laughing, she let him pull her down into his arms, and after several playful, delicious minutes she breathlessly admitted that she was convinced.

"I only mean I'm convinced this time." She added, and kissed the end of his nose when he started to argue. "If we're going to be play acting around other people, I reckon we owe it to each other to prove it's real once they're gone."

"Is that your new game?" He asked, grinning as he understood. "I like it better than the old one."

"Just you wait." She said archly. "I can play act just as well as you can, and I can promise an awful lot of things that you won't be able to do until you get me alone."

"So can I." Numair wrapped his arms around her waist and trapped her, whispering heatedly into her ear, "And I'm not above dragging you into a storeroom and telling you off."

She shivered and wondered how her mind always managed to paint such lurid images from just a few words. She could just imagine his hands on her wrist as he pulled her through the doorway, the smell of dust and candle wax, the glass jars rattling on the wooden shelves as he pressed her against them and…

"How do I lose this game?" Her lover asked, raising her shirt over her arms and pressing her into the carpet. Daine caught her breath and freed her arms, thinking to run them over his skin but almost clawing at him when he bit lightly at her neck. He laughed at her hoarse cry and unlaced his breeches, his eyes full of darkness and desire. "How do I win?"

"We both win. We both…" She raised herself up and looped her arms around his shoulders, kissing him fiercely until he surrendered and then twisting so that he lay under her. He laughed at her loss of words and ran his hands over her breasts, playful and passionate, until she lowered herself onto him and his hands fell to her hips with a groan of pleasure.

They barely heard the knocking until a voice in the corridor shouted for them, and Daine made the distraction worse by gasping, "I knew someone was watching us," just as her lover cursed and clutched at her, and after that they couldn't really have stopped even if they had wanted to. The girl came out of the drifting trembling world first, and kissed Numair before she reluctantly got up and, as a bleary afterthought, wrapped a cloak around her naked body.

She opened the door a crack and glared at the person outside it, who turned out to be a very embarrassed, but impatient, king. Although he couldn't meet her eyes he tried to be polite. "I need to talk to you. Both of you. I could hear you were in, so…"

"We're in because we're having sex." Daine said, exasperated into being brutally honest. "Go away. We want to have more."

"It's urgent." The king muttered, going even redder. "Otherwise I would have gone away already."

"Let him in, Daine." Numair called out. "Stop embarrassing the poor man."

"You said we should be honest." She called back, and hid a grin when he retorted:

"There's a difference between lighting a candle and burning the house down!"

The girl sighed dramatically and pushed the door open further, waving Jonathan through with the air of a mother humouring a young child into believing he was a king. For his part, Jon gave her a sheepish look on his way past, and grinned when the girl pulled a silly face at him. She smiled back and raised her voice so Numair could hear her. "I hope you remembered to put some clothes on, dolt. I'm fair sure Jon would prefer my rudeness to that."

She heard a muffled oath and a sound of scrabbling, and had to lean against the door frame to choke back her laughter. Jon politely lingered in the doorway for a moment, and then smirked and made his way into the main room. Numair managed to be quite cool and collected for someone whose shirt was on inside out.

"We're used to being a bit more isolated." He explained quite calmly, as if Jon had interrupted a magic experiment rather than a tryst. "People don't tend to demand entry back at the tower."

"Tell me what happened." The king waved away the whole embarrassing situation without a shred of bashfulness. "I heard your rooms were overturned."

Numair gestured pointedly around at the room, but Daine understood Jon's question. It was difficult to tell the difference between this mess and the normal chaos of these rooms. Her fingers itched to organise the scattered jars and sort out the mess of travel satchels and staves, but she knew that however hard she tried there would always be some corner or shelf which spoke of Numair's absentminded carelessness. He even had a reputation for it amongst the palace cleaners, and as often as not they refused to venture anywhere near the place.

"I've moved out of my rooms." She explained softly. "I'm sure they won't have been tidied up by now, if you wanted to look. We were sorting this room out before we got distracted."

Jonathan asked if anything had been stolen, and they shook their heads. Repeating the story which they had told to the steward, they filled in details for each other and described the shadow spell which Numair had cast, and the things that the animals had seen. Both of them admitted that there was no way to tell who had done it.

"But we can suspect." Jon finished, with a dark look. "The same people who disobeyed my command and sent assassins after you. It's not quite treasonous, but it's close enough to concern me."

"Us, too." Daine pointed out, a little archly. "They're targeting us after all, not you. You're just piqued because they ignored your orders."

"So did you," The king pointed out just as coolly. The girl shrugged and glanced at Numair, who also looked indifferent to the reprimand. Seeing this, Jon sighed and shook his head.

"Here's what's going to happen." He spoke in the level, official tones of a trained diplomat. "Daine, you're going to negotiate with those siren monsters and work out a way to keep my country safe from them. I'm not asking you to defend them. If you come to me and tell me there's no way to make them docile, then I will send my knights to kill them without a shred of remorse. I know you would rather that didn't happen, so I suggest you get less distracted and concentrate your time on the moat."

She reddened and twisted her fingers together. Numair went to her and looped his arm around her shoulders, looking narrowly at the king like a wolf protecting its mate, and waited for his own orders. Jon ignored the fierceness and continued,

"Numair, get this mess sorted out and start finding out who did it. You found out what one man looks like; other people would have seen them lurking around here and Daine's rooms while you were gone. Take my seal and interview them. From what Daine's told us, at least one of the men will be hurt. Ask the healers if they've treated any bites or scratches. And ask the clerks who paid out a large sum of money this week, or who received one to pass along to those assassins. Do whatever else it takes, but find out who these people are. You should have been doing that from the moment you arrived."

They both nodded their heads in half-bows, formal around Jon when he was truly the king and not simply their friend. They took their scolding in silence, knowing that in many ways they deserved it. Still, it was jarring to be spoken to like disobedient squires, and they both glanced at each other when Jon looked away. He spotted the shared look, and smiled thinly before giving them their third order, still in his serious voice.

"Both of you will come to court tonight, and attend the meal." He scowled at the scraps of clothes on the floor, and added. "Thayet will organise some clothes for you, I'm sure. If you're so determined to flaunt yourselves you might as well be seen together in public. It will never do to make people think you have something to hide."

"We already thought that." Numair interrupted, looking annoyed at being ordered to do something which he had already fixed his mind on. It was only after that, that he added, "A banquet is a little too grand, though."

"Nevertheless." The man said flatly. "Finish your orders by lunch time if you want to choose your own time. If not, then you'll do this on my terms. Things are bad enough without you two kicking your heels."

"Bad?" Daine asked. The king sighed, and then he was back to being just Jon, and their friend.

"You have no idea what they've been saying. Prepare yourselves for the worst. At least at the banquet you'll be under our eyes."

They did not finish their tasks by lunch time, although both of them barely stopped working to eat or drink until the sun started to set. When they made their way back into their room they compared stories, starting with how ridiculous their home looked when it was tidy. Numair admitted that he had bribed the steward to send hordes of servants into the fray. The result was almost dazzling, but it did not feel like a home until Numair had pulled several books down from the shelf onto his desk, and one of the cats had torn a pillow into feathery shreds. Kitten was the only one who seemed unfazed by the shining floors; she had curled around beside a tin of beeswax and was happily dozing, drinking in the rich scent. There were pails of hot water, too, and a bar of rich soap which lay on top of a pile of clothes and oddments which Thayet had sent.

Daine stripped off her muddy clothes and washed first, explaining that she really had no story to tell. The sirens had been glad to see her, but nothing had changed. They seemed content to simply stay where they were, now that they knew they were safe. "If only the lords could understand that." She said with a sigh, "They would stop expecting them to attack."

"They don't understand passivity." Numair agreed. "They expect everything to either be an ally or an enemy."

Daine nodded, looking suddenly thoughtful. "Do you think I could make them into allies, then?"

"What can they do to help?" The man asked, genuinely curious to see where her plan took her. Daine smiled, and it was as if all the worries about the sirens had disappeared.

"That's it!" She declared, and threw the soap into the clean pail with a grin. "I'll have to check with the sirens before I tell Jon, but I'm sure that's the answer!"

As soon as she was dressed she darted away, too excited to ask Numair how his work had gone. The man was secretly a little glad; he didn't want to name any of the intruders until he could prove that it was definitely them, even to Daine. It felt like a risk to even think their names too often. It was no wonder they had hired the assassins in such a complacent way; they were the sort of people who had quietly organised coups for generations. It was only their immense land holdings and wealth which had kept their places at court; Jon needed to assuage them to keep crops flowing throughout the country and trade growing between kingdoms. It was a risk to name them, but it would be an even greater risk to allow them to carry out their spite unchallenged. The trick would be in defusing the argument without starting a feud. Daine's plan, if it worked, would do most of the work. As for the rest… secrecy was best.

He made his way to the courtroom, not daring to wait any longer for Daine and risk being late for a royal summons. She caught up with him halfway down the stone walkway that ran through the courtyards towards the grander areas of the castle. Her skirts were streaked in mud, and her hair and hands were wet, but she was beaming in triumph.

"They agreed." She whispered, and laughed irresistibly.

"What's the joke?" Someone asked, and then they heard an intake of breath. "Gods, Daine, your dress!"

Daine barely looked down, but she looked a little ashamed as she curtseyed to the queen. She would not normally have bothered, but the walkway was busy with so many people that she knew she had to act properly in front of them. Thayet stepped forward and sighed as she touched the tacky wet silk. Summoning a footman, she whispered something to him and sent him on his way.

"This is my kind of battle, so I told Jon I would speak to you." She told them, beckoning them into a corner. "Everything you do, say or even think tonight has to be perfect. Everyone will be watching you. Pretend that this is an engagement ball, for it's as close to that as makes no difference. Don't react to anything they say, and for the gods' sake behave yourselves. If it was just your reputations on the line I wouldn't try to warn you, but there are whispers in the palace that it's more than that."

"Not just whispers." Numair said grimly. "I have a list of…"

"Yes, yes – but not here!" The woman hushed him quickly, looking around. "I know you were attacked; if we have a hope of catching whoever did it we have to keep them here. I'm sorry, but you'll just have to be scandalous enough to distract them until we make our move."

Daine snorted back a laugh, and coughed to hide it when they both looked at her. "What? It's convenient that we have a scandal ready, isn't it? If we didn't it'd be a fair silly strategy meeting making one up! Oh, Numair, I don't suppose you would… just for the traitors, you understand… if Daine agrees…?"

"Are you covered in mud in this scenario?" Numair asked with a grin. Daine was about to retort when the servant came running back, with a mage in tow. The man was a thin, anxious looking man in the thread-laden uniform of the palace tailors, and he threw up his hands in horror when he saw the state of the gown he had sewn only a few hours before.

"Sorry." Daine mumbled.

The man glared at her, and then pointed at the courtyard pump. His finger trembled a little as he proclaimed: "Wash!"

Once she had cleaned the mud from her hair and face her gown was soaked, but the tailor seemed happier about that then he had been before. Muttering to himself, he caught up a hand full of the skirt and examined it, then closed his eyes. Pea green light flowed from his fingers into the fabric, and Daine shifted uncomfortably when the entire dress became ice cold. She shivered and would have wrapped her arms around herself when there was an odd crumbling sound, and she saw the dirt falling away in chunks from the silk. The spell had somehow frozen it and then pulled it through the sheer weave. Now that it was clean she could see that the dress was a soft yellow colour. She had been so excited about talking to the sirens that she hadn't even noticed.

"Sorry." She whispered again, and this time she meant it. The tailor gave her a grudging nod and stepped away, pulling a comb out of some secret pocket and handing it to her. While she combed out her damp hair Thayet fussed over her face. If the tailor was good at finding combs, Thayet was a genius at hiding cosmetics. Daine got scowled at when she tried to protest, and mutely succumbed.

"You look half decent, now." Numair had been watching them with an amused smirk. Daine called him a word she had learned from the riders, and pointed out that there was plenty of mud around for him to bury his face in. The man looked aloof and straightened his sleeves, making his rings catch the light like a preening lordling.

"Between the two of you, you make one normal courtier." Thayet sighed, stepping back and looking over her work. "You will behave yourselves, won't you?"

"Don't worry." Daine told her, "We worked out a game to play."

The queen looked mildly panicked at that, and was about to demand that they explain the rules when a fanfare blared from the main hall. Giving them a last despairing look, she turned on her heel and went to meet Jon for the procession to the dais.

"Wait." Numair stopped Daine when she moved to follow the woman into the building. For a moment he looked awkward, and glanced around as if he was nervous that the curious courtiers would overhear some secret. Daine waited, intrigued and a little amused by his sudden shyness. He took a box out of his pocket and fiddled with it nervously.

"I swear I had a whole speech rehearsed." He said ruefully, and when he saw her expression he hastily added: "Not that kind of speech, Daine. I'm not ready for you to turn me down again. Not that I meant to even bring that up, but…erm." He stumbled to a halt and looked annoyed at himself, tugging on his nose as he thought.

Daine smiled and stood on her toes to draw his hand away and kiss his nose. "Start again."

He smiled and ruffled her hair, laughing when she scowled and tried to neaten it. "Alright, magelet. Well, I was thinking how tonight is really our first banquet together. If you were with any sane man you'd've been courted and flirted with until he turned your head…"

"My head," she said sternly, "does not turn."

He shook his head at the reaction, looking apologetic as he realised he'd been rambling. "What I'm trying to say is that all of that nonsense is fun, and we've been missing out on it. Killing spidren together holds a significantly lesser charm."

"Granted." She folded her arms and looked challengingly at him. "So what's the box for?"

He relaxed and smiled, opening the flat, slim case. Inside it was a thin silver bracelet. Daine stood stunned as he gently took it out and looped it around her wrist, snapping the clasp closed.

"It's… pretty." She struggled clumsily for a word, and ended up laughing at herself. The man held her hand up in front of her eyes so that she could see the bracelet better. A string of small, translucent stones shimmered in opalescent colours, each gripped by a pair of tiny dragon claws into delicate oval clasps which the chain linked together. The closer Daine looked, the more intricate the design became. She couldn't help holding her hand a little further away, feeling as if something so beautiful needed to be protected.

"This must have cost you a fortune." She whispered, and couldn't quite believe that it truly belonged to her.

"I got it for your birthday." Numair kissed her cheek and then passed his fingertips over the strange stones. Their hearts shimmered and dimmed, and then glowed in exactly the same soft yellow shade of her dress. He grinned when Daine's jaw dropped and admitted, "The jeweller agreed to a trade if I taught his assistant that spell. I also showed them how to protect the chains from damage, so they won't break or snap. This is a prototype."

Daine mulled that word over in her head and shrugged away the excess syllables. "So you're giving me one of your mage experiments to wear around my wrist?"

When he looked a little taken aback, almost abashed, she laughed and threw her arms around his back. "Thank you!" She burst out, and hugged him tightly. "I really love it. It's beautiful. But it's not my birthday, yet."

"I missed thirteen birthdays, before we met." The man said seriously. "I didn't say which birthday it was a present for."

"So I owe you… how many presents, Numair?"

He play acted a wince and offered her his arm. "I'm allergic to wrapping paper."

"I'm going to flirt back, you know" She pulled a face at him as they walked towards the hall. "You'd better get used to that right now. If we're going to be perfect little courtiers tonight, we might as well have some fun. Your game or mine, Numair?"

He grinned wolfishly and stopped to kiss her, taking his time and very deliberately smudging her lipstick with his thumb when he stroked her cheek. "Both." He said, "And I'm going to win."


	35. Besot

The worst part about attending court was always the waiting around. Before the banquet could begin, each visiting nobleman and woman had to be presented to the monarchs. Flowery words were spoken, gifts and official documents were exchanged, and the whole tedious business took so long that Jon had taken to opening the court an hour before sunset just so they could all eat before midnight. Thayet managed to look calm and regal for the hours of polite exchanges, but after an hour her husband always looked as if his shoes were two sizes too small.

Daine and Numair found themselves waiting in the atrium with the rest of the dignitaries. Usually they avoided this particular honour like it was pox ridden, but tonight they had been ordered to do everything properly. Daine thought longingly of the dark passage which let tardy guests sneak into the main hall behind the tapestries. She couldn't remember the last time either of them had walked into the courtroom through the main doors.

The people around them shifted nervously when they came in, and for a moment every pair of eyes fixed on them. Some of the eyes were hostile, narrowing and looking them both up and down for weaknesses, but most of them were indifferent or even scared. Since the war had ended, noble families had begun sending their sons and daughters back to the court, making the most of the safer roads and knowing that the court would soon be swarming with the young, soft creatures. The squires and knights who had fought their way through the battles looked at them with wide eyes; the squires brought the young ladies drinks and watched them drinking them as if they had never seen a human being that was so delicate and fine. They were so caught up with watching the women that they ignored the men, or perhaps they were disdainful of their soft, cossetted hands. Daine thought about all of her friends who had fought and died, and turned away from the silk-clad nobles. She would have rather come here in her muddy riding clothes than be mistaken for one of them.

"I would have been like that if I'd left." She murmured to Numair, and he followed her eyes to the nobles and laughed.

"I doubt even Lord Sylotol would have managed that, magelet. He's a nobleman, not a demigod."

"I'd like to see the demigod who would try. What a stupid use of power!" She giggled, imagining a shining creature dressed from head to toe in lace and velvet. Numair lowered his voice.

"Well, technically you are a demigod, right? All you'd have to do is put a little effort into it… balance a few books on your head and douse yourself in perfume…"

"Oh, hush!" She shoved at him, trying not to laugh out loud. People were already watching them too closely. "I'm not a demigod."

"No," He said, and raised her hand to kiss it. "You're far more than that, my love."

She blushed, caught off guard by his utterly sincere nonsense. It took her so long to think of an answer that she had to give up, with a rather rueful expression which Numair naturally read perfectly. He caught sight of someone at the other end of the atrium, and started moving through the crowd.

"Aren't you playing, Daine?" He whispered as he paused beside her. "If you surrender now I might be merciful."

"I wasn't expecting…"

"That's the whole point." He laughed wickedly and his fingers brushed against her waist, and then he was gone. Daine caught her breath and glared after him, seeing that he was greeting his old teacher with delight. Lindhall shot a smile at her, which Daine returned before she turned away and searched through the crowd for her own friends. Alanna and Onua weren't there, but she caught sight of someone else and pushed her way through the crowd with delight. Mari grinned widely when she saw her friend, and enveloped her in a hug.

"Why do you get to wear sensible clothes?" Daine demanded after she had freed herself from her friend's leather-clad arms. Mari looked at her rider's uniform happily and gestured around at the other riders.

"We're here to officially return our banners to Corus." She planted her hands on her belt and raised her chin proudly. "I was chosen to be one of the delegates."

"Congratulations." Daine said, warm pride obvious in her voice. After so many months scouting the forests around Tortall the Riders had gained a reputation for their skill, horsemanship and the raw cunning which had lead them through more tight corners than half of the knights could boast of.

Some of them had taken to collecting talons from the immortals they had killed, and their saddle bags were heavy with the silver claws by the time they came home. It was a little disconcerting to see her friends wearing silver claws on chains around their necks; It was a mark of pride to them but a close secret for Daine, wearing her own. She noticed that the claws were a little dull, now that they had been bored through and strung. The badger claw was still as bright and new as it had been the day he had gnawed it from his paw.

"I got your last letter," Daine said, frowning, "But I think I missed the one before that. You said you got hurt but I couldn't work out how."

"The horses took fright and stampeded." Mari shook her head. "I caught a few of them, and they dragged me through a fire pit before I let them go. It was stupid of me to think I could hold them." She unclipped her archer's guard and showed Daine the knot of a scar which must have been a searing burn. Daine whistled sympathetically and showed her some of her own scars, where Ozorne's razor sharp wings had sliced her nearly to the bone.

"I guess we were never going to make it through unscathed." The other girl said with a shrug. "At least we made it through. I'd rather have a scar than a headstone."

They stood silently for a moment, each thinking about the people who hadn't made it, and then Mari shook her head and her eyes lit up like candle flames. "Enough dwelling! What's this I hear about you and Master Salmalin?"

"Since when do you call him that?"

"Since I offered to take some of your lessons for you when you were tired. You gave me a lecture about being more respectful about your wise and terrifying patron."

"You only offered because you thought he was… what was the word you used? Cute?"

"I'm sure you're in a far better position to correct me now, Daine." Mari grinned and leaned closer. "Come on, Daine, you know you want to admit it."

Daine blushed even redder, but she raised her eyes to meet her friend's and gave her a small smile. Mari smothered a delighted cry with her hand and caught her wrist, pulling her into the nook beside the fireplace. "I knew it! I knew you would work it out! Gods, Daine, every time he looked at you I wanted to scream at you for not seeing what was right in front of your face."

"I'm fair sure there was nothing to see. You can't tell me you can read my best friend better than I can."

"Of course I can! I'm smarter than you. And besides, he was trying to hide it from you. Whenever you weren't looking he was like a kicked puppy."

Daine snorted out a laugh and covered her face with her hands. "I was so embarrassed when everyone started telling me they already knew he was in love with me. I felt like such a fool."

"He used to be an actor." Mari shrugged and then added: "But I'd get my revenge, if I was you. No self-respecting lady tolerates that kind of behaviour!"

The other girl pulled a face at her and kicked her feet against the floor, scuffing her new silk slippers with a small amount of glee. "We're playing a game tonight." She said, and tried to explain the rules in a way that didn't make them sound too sordid. Mari listened with a small grin lurking on her face, and then nodded and lowered her voice.

"I've played that game before. It's easy."

"You?" Daine gaped at her friend, who waved a hand in the air regally and then pointed briefly to one of the other riders, and then a second and third. Mari, it seemed, was more playful than picky. She had always been more relaxed around other people than Daine, and the wildmage had envied her for the open, comfortable way the riders lived. They weren't exactly infamous, but the ones who had sworn their lives to the command tended to have their own relaxed code of conduct. She realised that Mari might have been offended by her surprise, so she cleared her throat and asked, "What do you mean, it's easy?"

The girl looked at her steadily. "Well, I mean it's much harder for men to hide what they're feeling than women. You know that, Daine."

Daine wished she could stop blushing. She nodded. "So how does that help me? He wouldn't have suggested this game if he thought I could win like that."

"And he's played it before." Mari mused. She thought for a moment, and then looked sidelong at the other girl. "I have an idea. I'll tell it to you if you tell me everything else."

"Why do you want to know that?" Daine burst out. Her friend shrugged and grinned.

"Talking about it is fun, and I've heard enough gossips telling me the sordid details for me to actually ask you the truth. Do you really turn into animals for him?"

"What? No!" Daine's eyebrows shot up in horror. "Who on earth has been saying that?"

"I don't know, or I'd've corrected them for you." Mari said with a shade of darkness in her eyes. Then she stopped being playful, and took Daine's hands and spoke as one friend to another. "I want to know if you're happy. Not like how the lords are probably asking, or Lady Alanna with her well -meaning rampages. I want to know so I can sleep well at night. So, telling me all the lovely details is really your duty as my friend. You want me to stop worrying, don't you?"

"You don't need to worry." Daine finally gave in and smiled. "I'm very happy."

"Good!" Mari dropped one of her hands so she could lean closer in a pose of rapt attention. "Tell me, my dutiful friend, how exactly is he keeping you happy, and how many times a night does he raise your mournful spirit?"

Daine rolled her eyes and her expression turned wary. "He's very good to me."

"That's a vague nothing-answer if ever I heard one!" – miming disgust – "I swear I will weep myself to sleep tonight in worry, you uncaring friend!"

"Pick one of your riders to comfort you." Daine suggested snidely. Mari laughed.

"Don't change the subject. Talk!"

"What do you want to know? He's very gentle and… well, he was gentle when it was needful, and now it's not, so he isn't. It's more like… when he looks at me sometimes I can see how much he wants me, and it just fills me up from my toes to my chest to see that. It's like a real pain except I know that if he touches me it'll make it stronger, not pain but that feeling that just burns and rolls like the ocean until you want to burst. He makes me feel like that just by looking at me, Mari. So when he holds me I feel it so much more strongly and I can't be gentle, and I can't bear for him to stop touching me for a single moment."

"Dear gods, you are besotted." Mari answered in an awed voice, and then managed a weak smile. "If he can make your knees tremble just by looking at you then you might lose your game after all."

"Mari! After I told you…!"

"Yes, yes. You said he's flirted with other women before and not you. Well, that's fine. You don't flirt, and you look like a blind moth when you try to flutter your eyelashes, so I don't think you'll win by trying to flirt back."

"But that's the whole point!"

"No, the point was to drive him crazy. Make him think of all the naughty things he wants to do with you when he's not allowed to do a single one. I can promise you he'll think more about unlacing your dress than you will about the poems he whispers in your ear. So you just have to make him think about that, and you'll win."

Daine smothered a shocked giggle with her hands. "How do I do that?"

"Be yourself, for a start. He's in love with you, not a court lady. You know how to make him want you."

"Not really. Usually I just start pulling his clothes off and he gets the idea."

"What a clever man." Mari drawled, and started fussing with Daine's dress, pulling it a little lower in places, a little tighter in others, and relacing the corset so that the top loop looked like it might come undone with just a single tug. "There. It's not enough to shock the court, but it's enough for him to notice, I'm sure. Now, this is what I think you should do…"


	36. Truce

Thayet thought very strongly about telling Daine off when the girl was finally summoned to speak before the court. Somehow in the last hour she had managed to crumple her skirts and smudge her carefully applied makeup, and if her hair hadn't still been neat the queen would have suspected her of doing something very inappropriate in the atrium. As it was she hardly had enough time to even look disapproving; as soon as Daine had made her curtsey she raised her voice and announced to the room, "I've negotiated a truce with the immortals in the moat."

"Negotiated, Miss Sarrasri?" Jonathan asked her in his formal voice, leaning forward with interest quick in his eyes. Daine nodded emphatically, and then remembered she was in court.

"Yes… sir. Yes, I spoke to them this afternoon and explained to them that we needed some kind of agreement to make sure that we could trust each other."

"What are the details of this truce?" One of the nobles asked with a frown. "Surely they should have been approved in the small chamber before you even spoke to those fish?"

"The lords of the small chamber wanted to kill them." Daine said quietly. "I figured the fish would be more reasonable than a bunch of scared men hiding behind thick stone walls."

Jonathan held his hand up to silence the inevitable uproar that the very diplomatic wildmage had provoked. "Sir Alcott has a point, Daine. We can't possibly accept this truce until we know what we're agreeing to."

"I told them what you told me. About how you'd kill them if they couldn't prove they were peaceful. I stopped them getting too scared, but that was fair difficult. They don't understand right or wrong so they don't know what they've done to hurt anyone. I had to explain that to them too, you know, and they're so sorry now."

"While this is very pitiable…" another nobleman drawled, and stopped when Daine glared at him.

"Pitiable? You were shoutin' for their blood as loud just as everyone else, but you act like they're too stupid to even be scared of that. They're alive, just like you. They deserve to live." She drew a deep breath and made a noticeable effort to calm herself down. "So… so I offered them a deal. They understand their power now, and they know how it can hurt people. I told them that the people we let into the city are safe. I also told them that the people who throw fire and arrows at our walls, the people who set fire to our farm lands, are dangerous. They've agreed that if ever Corus is attacked, they will use their power to fight for us."

The room collectively drew a breath and held it. The sudden value of the creatures as a weapon occurred to all of them at the same time, and a flurry of whispers burst out around the girl who was chewing her lip nervously as she looked up at the king. Jonathan stayed quite still, but it was clear that his mind was racing just as quickly as his courtiers.

"How effective a weapon are they?" He asked. Daine thought for a moment, counting on her fingers.

"They can hold two or three people each, and they can hold them until it's too dry for them to breathe. So that's maybe a hundred and fifty soldiers turning around and fighting the people who brought them to our gates. As long as no-one attacks us during a drought." She added, more slowly. "They don't like the sun."

Jonathan nodded and beckoned his ministers over to talk to them. Daine watched, nervously twisting her hands together as she watched them wave their hands. Were they angry, or excited, or…?

She looked around and caught sight of Numair in the crowd, standing beside Lindhall. They both smiled at her, and they looked so at-ease that she relaxed. If she had misspoken then one of them would have been trying to send her a signal, or at least would be looking worried. She unclasped her hands and stood straighter until Jon finished speaking and waved the ministers away.

"We have decided," He announced, "That the benefit of these creatures outweighs the risk. We are content to agree to this truce, on two conditions. One of them must be conveyed to the sirens: that if they break their agreement, they will be exterminated immediately, and with no hope of reprieve. We cannot risk such an intrusive magic infecting the minds of the people of our city. Daine, can you explain this to them?"

She bowed, her heart racing. Jonathan frowned, and spoke a little more slowly.

"The second condition concerns you, Daine. For the next year you will remain in the city and be held accountable for every action the sirens undertake. If they act outside of their contract you are to inform us immediately. You must swear not to protect them or to hide anything from us. If you break this condition… my cabinet has decided that if you act against their wishes, you will be punished as if you had committed the siren's crime yourself."

Daine paled a little. Even mind reading was against the law, and carried harsh penalties since the king's uncle had used it to try to usurp the throne. She knew the laws against controlling another person would be merciless. She swallowed and told herself off for being afraid; she trusted the sirens, didn't she?

"I'm happy with these conditions." She managed, and then raised her voice to make sure the room could hear her. "I will tell the sirens that they are safe."

"We should execute one, in payback for my son." One of the lords shouted, but his voice was hushed by the people around him. He retreated, glaring into the room, but as his friends gathered around him Daine saw tears standing in his eyes, and she watched the tremor in his hands. The man was grieving, and sick with anger, but he wasn't a cruel man. He looked like he had hardly eaten or slept since his son had been killed, and his eyes were swollen with crying. She looked away when he glared up at her, and felt such pity for him that she half wanted to cry.

"Numair," she said softly, going to him, "I don't think that man sent the assassins."

"No, he didn't." Numair whispered back, and looked furtively around the room. "I think I know who did it."

"Well, then can't you tell…"

"No!" He shook his head emphatically and then lowered his voice. "There's no evidence, and he's too powerful for our word to be enough to convict him. I've spoken to Jonathan, and we're setting a trap."

"A trap?" She couldn't believe her ears. "What, we're going to wait for him to smash more of our plates?"

"Not quite. But I can't tell you what it is."

Daine planted her hands on her hips and looked utterly impressed. Numair grinned and nudged her shoulder with one finger. "You're not in any danger. You're just not a good enough liar to be convincing."

"Thank you, you unbearable dolt." She sniffed, and made to walk away. The man laughed and followed her.

"Is that you flirting, Daine? I feel so loved."

"If you think it's romantic I have a few other choice flirting words I could call you, Numair."

"I'm just asking because you're still losing our game."

"I just saved a whole species of immortals from certain death." Daine announced in a player's voice. "Some of us don't have time to win silly games."

"So you give up?"

"Not a chance." She grinned wolfishly at him and planted her hands on her hips. "If I win this game and save the sirens in one night I can crow over you for _weeks!_ You didn't think I'd give up that chance, did you?"

"When you glare at me like that it's like you're whispering sweet poetry into my aching ear." He replied, shamelessly oblivious.

She sighed and pulled a face. "Of course, I meant…" She recited in a toneless, robotic voice: "'Oh Numair, I love you and your smug annoying smile which you only wear when you're teasing me, I can't wait to sing to you about butterflies and compare your eyebrows to summer evenings.'"

"That does sound like fun." He said cheerfully, and then caught her hand and pressed it between his own. "But how about dancing with me, first?"

The first dance was a lively dance which they began in small circles, and ended up spinning in small groups with their arms raised into star shapes. Although everyone entered the dance with a partner, they were soon split up as the groups grew and shrank, changing from circles into trios and back into stars. Some of the older nobles sniffed at the sight, comparing the lively lute and crumhorn playing to the rustic recorders of the peasants. Most of the younger dancers enjoyed the fast steps, especially after the tense, boring time they'd had to spend waiting to be announced. The lingering fear of the newly presented had faded, and in that first dance the young nobles forgot that they were at court to impress potential partners, and simply had fun.

Daine and Numair joined in with just as much relief; now that the sirens had been dealt with many of the angrier nobles had calmed down, and far fewer people were staring at them. There were still quite a few, though, but as she danced through the arches of other dancer's outstretched arms Daine realised that she did not care. All they had been ordered to do was to be here, and they were going to have fun. If other people decided to interfere that was their business, and she wouldn't waste any time worrying over it.

She was quite breathless when the music ended, and she looked around half expecting to see Numair dancing with someone else. She wouldn't have minded; in court dances everyone ended up with whoever was least tired, and Numair had always enjoyed showing off his cultured Carthaki upbringing with anyone who wanted to dance. She jumped when the man suddenly appeared through the crowd and handed her a glass of wine.

"Why aren't you dancing?" She asked, drinking it thirstily. He sat down beside her and picked up a flower from the table display, tearing its leaves off before he threaded it into her hair.

"You're not dancing." He replied mildly, "Why would I dance with anyone else?"

She laughed. "You like dancing."

"The unromantic answer is that I like you more. But honestly, magelet, I'm not here to dance or to bow to Jonathan. I'm here because I want to hold you in my arms and show every single person here how lucky I am. Out of all the men in this room, you chose me to fall in love with."

"I didn't choose. It just happened." She mumbled awkwardly, and shivered when the man took her wine glass away and raised her to her feet.

"I know you find all of this embarrassing." He confided, and stroked her hair back from her forehead. "I'm having fun, magelet. Let me know if you want me to stop."

"I just don't know what to say!" She whispered back. "You know all these flowery ways to say things and all I want to say is… well, it doesn't sound anything like that."

"Try it anyway." The man suggested, and led her back out onto the dance floor. Daine chewed her lip as she thought, and smiled wryly when he gently ran his thumb over her mouth to stop her.

The dance was a slow pavanne which was laughably easy compared to the branle they had danced before. It was also one of the few dances that Daine knew as well as her friend, and so she didn't have to think about the steps as she spoke.

"Well, you keep telling me things you love about me." She started, "Like I'm made up of two eyes and curly hair and let's not even get you started on how much you like the rest of me. I don't see you like that. You're just… you. All real and solid and not made up of parts. I don't love your forehead more than your elbows because they're all the same thing. I love you so much that I can't breathe when I look into your eyes … but I don't love your knees or your toes."

"Duly noted." He said seriously, and then: "That's one point you've won, Daine. Keep going."

"How did that win a point?" She demanded, letting him spin her around for the second promenade. "I wasn't flirting! I just told you the truth."

"What about if I had said it?" He pulled her closer, slowing down so that they were barely moving, and when she met his eyes they were so dark and deep that she felt like she was drowning in them. He was silent for a long time, his hand moving to cup the side of her face, and when he finally spoke the words were just as honest as her own had been. "I love you so much that I can't breathe when I look into your eyes."

Daine felt her heart racing, and realised that his own was just as unsettled. "I didn't know it happened to you, too. I feel like I'm drowning."

He kissed her very gently, and then took her hand so they could start dancing again. "That's why I like flirting, sweet. We still don't know these things about each other. If we sat down and talked about them seriously things might get very heated very quickly…"

"Why would I argue about this?"

"I didn't mean arguing." Numair ran his hand lightly down her body and settled it down on her waist for the last part of the dance. He smiled when she blushed. "I meant that we shared one serious thought tonight, and you're still trembling like a leaf."

"You make me tremble." She confessed. He grinned.

"Again, that's mutual. The trick is not to let the pious lords and ladies see you doing it."

Daine raised her eyebrows at him and for the next few steps of the dance she moved closer than she needed to every time the dance brought them close together. Numair was so used to her being a careless dancer that she didn't think he'd see through the trick, but when the set ended and she had her back pressed to his chest he laughed and wrapped his arms around her waist.

"Watch." He said, and they looked at the other dancers who had started their sets later. Daine didn't understand what she was looking for until he bent down and murmured into her ear, "The last time we danced this one together you were so awkward you danced a foot away from me, Daine. You can tell a lot about people by the way they dance together."

She bit her lip, annoyed that she had thought he wouldn't notice when he was the better dancer, and looked at the other dancers. Some of them looked like they weren't really enjoying themselves; their faces were set with concentration as they tried to remember the steps, and they didn't really look at their partners at all. "Those are the new courtiers." She murmured, pointing.

"Good." He kissed her ear. "Now tell me which ones have had a fight."

A fight? It was a dance, wasn't it? Why would people dance if they were angry? Daine watched the nobles' slow steps carefully, imagining them as a herd of animals. Who were the dominant wolves, and who were the clumsy pups?

It was hard to see them as animals at all, if she was honest; there was something so human about the way that they were moving that she couldn't quite manage it. It took her a while to work out why she was thinking that, and when the answer came to her she blushed bright red. The dance was mimicking… other things. She had never noticed before, because she had never thought about it before. But some of the couples moved in ways that told her that they had moved together in the same rhythms, that they were used to their hands twining and untwining, that the men knew the women would spin so easily into their arms.

"I've just worked out why you like dancing." She muttered, and heard him chuckle.

"Who's fought, Daine?"

She pointed without having to think about it. The couple were dancing in the same fluid way, but they were deliberately stopping themselves from fitting their steps with the other person. It looked silly, now that she was aware of it, as they were both so caught up in dancing badly that they had synchronised their mistakes into a new kind of grace.

"They'll forgive each other." She said aloud, watching them peacefully. "They won't be able to help it."

"Yes, I think so too." Numair let her go and held his arm out, his eyes laughing. "So now, Miss Sarrasri, will you save your next dance for me?"

"What will you be thinking about while we do it?" She replied, a challenging note in her voice. He looked taken aback for a moment, and then a wary playfulness crossed his face.

"I can't imagine what you mean."

"I'll show you." She caught his arm and spun under it, ending the dance move by cuddling into the crook of his arm. While she was there she rested her head on his shoulder and looked up. "What am I thinking?"

He looked down and tweaked her nose. "You're trying to tease me."

"Not at all. You'll have to do better than that." Daine shook her head in disappointment. "I thought you could read people dancing. How about this one?"

This time the girl caught both his hands, crossed her own and twisted under them so that she finished up facing him, with his hands resting on her shoulders and her own settling on the nape of his neck. "What am I thinking?"

"That's not a real dance."

"No, that's what _you're_ thinking. I could be telling you a secret and you'd never know because my slippers are too tight to skip properly around a shiny floor. What am I thinking, Numair?"

He looked levelly at her for a long time, and took one of his hands off her shoulder to tug at his nose. When he realised he'd done it, he smiled ruefully and returned it to her shoulder. "What are you thinking, mischief?"

She sighed long-sufferingly and mimed a sniffle. "Did you see this dress that Thayet gave me? I like how it flows out when I spin."

He smiled and fiddled with one of the thin straps which held the dress over her shoulders. "I forgot to look. I can't see much of it from here. It's a little…" He looked down, blushed and then forced himself to look away. "Um, it's… there's not much of it on the… the top of it."

Daine looked down in pretend surprise, hiding a smile. "Oh, I hadn't noticed!"

"I'm sure you didn't." He looked guardedly at her.

"The fabric's really soft." The girl ignored his last remark and took his hand down from her shoulder, kissing it lightly before placing it onto her hip. He froze, looking around. Daine smiled and kissed his cheek. "We're dancing, you dolt."

"Dancing." He echoed in a strange voice, and his fingers moved lightly across the fabric. "Daine, please tell me the music is still slow enough for me to kiss you properly. We promised to behave ourselves."

"Then you can't kiss me." She murmured back, and pulled away, curtseying like a noble lady at the end of every dance before walking away. When she looked back, Numair was looking after her and laughing. There was a challenging set to his face which made her shiver; she knew that whatever she did, Numair would find a way to pay her back.


	37. Sweet Nothings

There was a lull in the evening when the servants emerged and started moving the tables away from the walls to the center of the room. The tables were long rectangles of rough wood which most of the guests sat at on long benches; the head of each table held an honoured or particularly obnoxious person who would have been slighted at sharing a bench with lesser mortals.

Daine looked enviously at the far side of the room where the lower tables had already been set up; the riders were pushing at each other as they took their seats, sliding down the benches to crowd each other away from the choice portions of meat and laughing tipsily when they managed to shove someone backwards onto the floor. Usually she would be sitting with them, or at least with people who didn't smell of sickly rose water and ambergris. The table the head steward had directed them to was almost as high as the king's table, where everyone would be able to see them. Daine knew that was the whole point, but she was still tempted to steal Mari's tunic and hide amongst the riders.

As they waited for the tables to be seated the guests talked quietly in the alcoves of the hall, beside fireplaces or near to the wide stained glass windows. Daine left Numair talking excitedly to one of the scribes about some tedious book he had found in the crypts, and made her way to one of the quieter fireplaces where the castle dogs were gathered.

The moth-eared mongrels were kept to hunt rats and were so used to being tripped over, cursed at and kicked under the tables that they had learned how to fade into the shadows until the drunken nobles started spilling food scraps onto the floor. Daine had always felt a little sorry for the dogs, and made a point of talking to them every time she attended court. Today one of them had an injured paw where a knight had trodden on him, and the mongrel held the limb out with a plaintive whine.

"It's broken," Daine said, and sent a burst of soothing light into the dog's half-feral mind. "But it'll be right as rain in a minute."

A yelp of pain scared her out of her meditation the moment she closed her eyes, and she opened them to see another of the dogs whining, cringing away from its own tail. Before she could work out what had happened there was a bark from the other side of the hall, and a whine of pain from another of the dogs in her group. Daine stood up quickly, looking around, but the press of people was too thick for her to see what had happened.

"What's wrong?" She asked the dogs milling around her. "What happened?"

 _Pulled my tail._ The cringing dog said, trying out a tentative wag. The dogs around him growled and looked into the crowd of humans, but it was impossible to see who had done it. Daine frowned. Stepping on a dog by accident was something people genuinely regretted; no-one could have pulled a dog's tail hard enough to make it yelp without meaning to do it.

The dog from the other side of the room limped through the crowd, its hind foot a mangled mess. Daine gasped and pulled it into her lap, stroking back its soft ears from its wide brown eyes. The dog licked her face weakly.

"This wasn't an accident." She whispered, seeing the cruel precision with which someone had planted the heel of their boot into the dog's paw. The bones were crushed. Once again, as soon as she closed her eyes to meditate one of the dogs let out a wail. This time she saw the culprit. The woman didn't try to hide herself this time, simply stared down with angry eyes and a smug half smile. The dog she had kicked cringed away from her while the others started growling.

"Call them off, bitch." The woman said, her voice completely calm. "Or I'll summon the guard."

"What the hell is wrong with you? You deserve to be bitten!" Daine spat, looking at the mangled paw. The woman sighed and shook her head.

"For accidentally stepping on one of those mutts? Sending your pets to maul an innocent woman is a crime."

The girl stared up at her for a moment in blind fury, and then sent a silent command to the dogs. She refused to let this woman hear her giving in, although she smiled widely when the growling suddenly stopped.

"Alright, you got my attention." Daine growled almost as fiercely as the dogs. "What do you want?"

"Isn't it obvious?" The woman drawled, in a way that suggested she had practiced the insouchiant downward glance in front of a mirror. She looked a little taken aback when Daine shook her head.

"There's maybe ten things people hate me for right now. I'm fair sure you're not here to say nice things about my dress, but that's about all I know. What on Mithros' spear do you want?"

"Do you talk to _him_ that way? Like a foul-mouthed slut?"

Daine sighed and scratched between the dog's ears, trying not to think about its agonised weeping in her mind. "You're here about Numair, then."

"I'm here to tell you to back off." The woman's expression grew even more fierce, and she leaned closer so she could lower her voice. This close, her mouth was a white slit between a red gash of teeth. "I'm here to tell you all the promises he made to me before you opened your pretty legs."

"He doesn't make promises." Daine said bluntly, pressing her hand to the dog's knee and expertly numbing all of the nerves below it. "He either does something or he doesn't bother, but he never ties himself up more than is needful. Are we thinking about the same man? Mine didn't promise to love me for ever and ever… because he didn't need to. He already loves me."

The woman reddened at the mocking sing song of the girl's voice and shoved one of the dogs out of the way. "I'm not talking about those kinds of promises. He said…"

"Touch the dogs again and I'll set them loose." Daine interrupted her, eyes cold. "They won't touch you, but they'll tear that silly yellow dress off your skin."

On cue, the dogs began to let out a low, ominious growl which made the woman's skin pale. Daine smiled humourlessly at the woman until she backed away a little. While she waited for her to collect her arrogant pride, the wildmage started gently moulding the dog's paw into its proper shape with gentle fingers, sending shards of healing towards the major breaks so that it would keep its form for the tendons to knit together.

"Let me tell you about the promises he made." Daine's voice was soft, but cool, and the woman looked sharply at her as she continued: "He sweet-talks you into falling half in love with him, but he isn't talking to you about his work or his life, just about how beautiful you are and how your laughter is like raindrops trickling off a privy gutter. Some nonsense, but he's the famous Black Mage and when he looks at you it's like there's no-one else in the world. So you tell yourself it's not just nonsense, and there really is something there."

The woman had fallen silent, glowering, and Daine felt a little sorry for her. But her words continued regardless, and there was a brutal honesty in them that they both knew was true.

"Then one night he takes your hand and leads you into his chambers. You laugh, maybe act frightened, but he's seen women do that before and he knows what to say. Whatever he says works. Maybe he says that you'll be the only one from now on, or that you're special. Maybe you think he means to marry you, or set you up in his castle as his mistress, but he never says those words. You only hear them because he knows the clever words that say everything and don't mean anything at all. And even after he's bored of you it's hard to let him go, because no-one could have made those promises without meaning them. Except he didn't mean them, because he never said them to start with."

"You little bitch." The woman hissed. "You don't know what you're talking about. He'll be finished with you soon enough. You're not even his type! Why would he want a flat chested boyish child when he could have a real woman?"

"What makes you real?" Daine looked at her with the level querulousness she had learned from Numair. "Having bigger breasts than me?"

The woman gaped at her, trying to think of an answer, and the girl sighed.

"Some of the others talked to me. You weren't the first one he played that trick on, but I promise you that you were the last. If you hadn't made me hate you I'd be nicer about telling you all this. But you hurt my friends." She looked around at the dogs and her heart twisted, making her want to be cruel. The words were out before she could stop them. "How do you feel knowing that while he was screwing you, he was thinking about me?"

The woman hissed out a cry and slapped her hard across the face. The dogs stood up as one, snarling now, but Daine held out her hand to make them back away.

"I deserved that." She gasped, holding her other hand to her face. Raising her eyes to the woman, she looked mulishly apologetic. "I shouldn't have said that. I should have just let the dogs bite you when you called me a slut."

"You are a slut." The woman's voice was poisonous. "A stupid little girl playing games she doesn't understand."

Daine thought of the game she and Numair were playing and for a second she thought this woman had overheard them. A deep blush spread across her cheeks before she could stop it, and the woman picked up on it like a hawk. Her smug smile returned, and this time there was a thinness to it which made the girl feel uneasy.

"I've heard about you." She crowed, moving closer again so that her sickly perfume washed over Daine like a toxic cloud. "Everyone knows what you were like with the stable boys. Some even say you practiced with the horses… although they argue over whether you bothered changing shape first. Maybe your dear teacher caught you at it, maybe you whispered it in his ear, but what man would turn down a fresh peach so hungry to be plucked? How old were you – fifteen? Sixteen?"

"Don't be disgusting." Daine would have pulled away, but the dog in her lap was shivering in pain while he healed and she had to hold him still. Instead, she glared at the floor so that the woman couldn't see the appalled tears in her eyes. People were saying that? But it was too late, the woman had scented blood.

"Everyone knows you did it. Say what you like about me, little slut, but at least I made no secret of it. He courted me and gave me gifts and when I was too ladylike to succumb he went home to fuck his little whore."

The girl looked up sharply at the coarse words, her skin white with anger. "Don't you dare say…"

"What? That's all you are to him. Convenient and pathetic. You should have charged him a copper like all the other sluts. At least then you won't have to beg on the streets when he gets bored of you and stops lying about your legendary powers."

The woman shoved at another of the dogs, and laughed when it snapped at her but backed away, cowering. Daine held out a hand and cuddled the dog to her, making the woman laugh snidely. "Look at you. The mighty mistress of mongrels and back alley cats."

"Are you trying to slander me or Numair?" Daine asked, exasperated. "People won't believe any of that nonsense."

The woman smiled archly and got up, walking away as daintily as if she had been discussing lace tatting. Daine watched her go in numb silence, and then realised why the woman was so smug.

There had been people around them for the whole argument. People who would have heard every word, and seen the woman slap her. Had any of them even turned around? They had made a wall of bodies in between Daine and anyone who might have been looking for her. The woman could have done or said anything she wanted; no one would have intervened. But now, looking at them wandering away with their hands hovering by the daggers at their belts, Daine realised that they hadn't simply ignored them. If she had lost her temper and struck the woman back, or let the dogs attack as she had tried to goad them in to doing, then those people would have turned around.

Who were they? She watched them, but even when their faces caught the candlelight she recognised none of them. They were just normal people, citizens who lived in the palace or the larger townhouses. Most of them didn't even speak to each other, but drifted back to their own families and groups. Dukes, barons and merchants: people from all walks of life. One of them even made his way back to the riders. They had no conspiracy or plan; they had simply heard the same story.

They believed it. Daine swallowed back humiliated tears and wrenched her eyes away from them. The one from the riders hurt her deeply, but she refused to look closer and see his face. What if it was someone she knew, or someone who she had trained? The thought of standing in front of the recruits knowing that they had all heard this story made her feel sick.

She called the dogs back to her in silence and spent a long time sitting in the middle of a huddled circle, comforting them and letting them comfort her, healing the injured ones and warning the others that they should stay away from humans for a few weeks. People had worked out that the easiest way to hurt the wildmage was to kick at an innocent dog. As the woman had pointed out, it wasn't even a crime. Only the lap dogs and the hunting hounds had any kind of status in a castle this size; these curs caught rats and licked food scraps off the grimy floor. Only the wildmage would think they were worth protecting.

"The mistress of mongrels." Daine whispered to herself, and had to hide her face against a spaniel's fur before the tears started to fall.


	38. Truth

By the time the dinner gong rang Daine was still missing. Numair knew her well enough to ignore the people who were still standing and talking merrily to each other, and instead started searching the shadows and the corners of the great hall for footprints. There were almost none on the south side, whereas the northern wall was a hunter's nightmare of claw, paw and snout marks which had swept ash from both the large fireplaces into a mire of stories. There were no animals, though, and as he followed the trail Numair had to stop himself feeling worried. Although Daine's magic called animals to her, most of the castle animals were used enough to it that they weren't as badly under its thrall as the wild creatures. After the wildmage's first few weeks in the castle they barely acknowledged her unless she greeted them. For all of the animals to have followed her, something must have happened.

The trail led him to a tapestry, and as he ducked behind it the man heard a soft sighing sound. It was utterly unlike any sound he had heard before. He cast a soft mage light, and saw all of the missing animals blocking the passage way. They were all sitting in uncannily neat rows, facing the seated human who had her hands folded in her lap. The sound was their breathing, deep and even like an army of meditating humans.

Numair waited for Daine to finish, knowing from experience that the animals didn't take kindly to being interrupted. It seemed to take hours, although from the sounds of the people milling on the other side of the tapestry he guessed it was more like minutes. He watched the girl and saw that she was biting her lip in concentration, a frown line puckering her forehead. When she finally opened her eyes he saw that they were a little swollen, and the makeup Thayet had redundantly used on her lashes had run.

Seeing him watching, she ducked her head away and looked back at the animals. She must have spoken silently, because as one they all started to stream away. To Numair's surprise none of them went back into the hall, where the rich smell of roasted meat must have been tempting every twitching nose. Instead, they all ran down the passage way into the residential wing of the castle.

"What happened?" The man asked, stepping forward. He held out a hand to help Daine to her feet, and noticed the small hesitation before she took it. She couldn't meet his eyes, and he made his voice sound stern to hide his worry. "Daine, tell me."

She didn't look up. "People were hurting the dogs to hurt me."

"Gods! Why?"

Daine took a deep breath, and for a moment it seemed like she was about to cry again. Then she steeled herself, raised her chin stubbornly and recounted everything that had happened, starting with the woman and her accusations and ending with the story which everyone had heard and believed. At first she didn't even want to tell him what the story was, but when he insisted she told it in a flat tone which made it sound even worse.

"I know that she's jealous, and she was trying to hurt me." She finished, still not meeting his eyes. "But I didn't know everyone would believe that… that horrible story. Mari asked me the same thing today but I… but I thought she was teasing me."

"What did she ask you?"

"Whether I turn into animals for you. I thought she was joking but she was trying to warn me. They all think we do things like that. And that… that you lied about my magic so you could keep me here as your whore."

"Mari said that?" He asked, shocked. Daine made a strange sound and shook her head scornfully, but didn't say anything else. Numair bit down his own disgust and forced himself to take a deep breath while he thought about what to say.

"They've been accusing me of that for years. I always laughed it off."

"Yes, but it wasn't true, then." She said miserably.

"It's not true now."

"It's…" She made a frustrated gesture and winced. "It's less of a lie than it was, isn't it? There was no reason why we had to keep living together after Carthak, and it might have helped a fair bit more if Jon had sent us on different missions afterwards. He could have sent us to help more people, but he knew we would have been half useless without each other even back then."

"There is a significant difference between that and defrauding the monarchy for sex."

Daine shrugged off the officious words and looked away. "I guess I'm fair used to seeing two versions of everything now it's us against them. You have to admit that they have a point. Nothing would have happened between us if we'd ended my apprenticeship properly."

"I don't have to admit that. It's nonsense." He tried to make himself sound less angry, but couldn't manage it. Between the horrible stories and the pale misery on Daine's face, he was fighting to stop himself from marching back into the hall and confronting every last one of them. Taking his anger out by arguing with Daine was hardly going to make things any better.

The girl stared at her hands. "The worst thing is the way that they think we're not… not normal. Every story has you drugging me with potions or me turning into animals - horrible, dirty things which they're all imagining and telling each other about us. They can't even believe that we're normal people who fall in love as naturally as they do. They seem to think there has to be something wrong with what we're doing because of our magic."

"And they want to pretend we've been hiding it from them all this time. I apparently seduce children now. I thought being a lech was damning enough." Numair added bitterly. He shook his head in disgust and his own eyes were guarded. "Who told you all this, Daine?"

"Don't." She caught his arm and finally looked up. "It wasn't just her, and if you storm in there looking for her it'll be just what she wants. We can be angry now, but when we're in that room we have to ignore it."

He scowled and shook her off, but stopped trying to leave. "I bet it was Lady Dykalkis."

"I won't tell you." Daine took a deep breath and started brushing the loose fur from her dress. As always, the garment probably wouldn't make it past one evening without needing to be repaired, but the animals had done surprisingly little damage. There was one tiny paw print on her waist, which made her smile. The kitten who had left it there had asked after Kit so excitedly that Daine had ended up telling him where the animal's got into Numair's rooms. The little dragon was expecting a quiet evening, but the tiny cat would soon wake her up.

"So what if they believe it?" Daine said, as if she was trying to convince herself of what she was saying. "We know it's not true, and so does any sensible person who knows us. If strangers want to waste their time making up stories about us then I can't stop them. If we argue with them they'll think we're hiding something, so I'm not going to do a thing."

"It's not as easy as you think." Numair replied, but he looked a little relieved now that she was more composed. "Some of them know how to get under your skin."

"Well, they'd have to get through to both of us. I'm counting on you to stand guard." Daine risked a smile, and to her relief it came quite easily. "I'm nearly done here. Let's have fun like we planned, and forget the nonsense they're saying. By tomorrow they'll stop trying to break us apart."

"Fun? But I was planning on reciting funeral dirges during the salad course." The man said solemnly. "Should I reconsider?"

"Wait a moment." She replied, holding her hand up as she listened to something. Numair heard nothing, which he was far too accustomed to, and then he heard the raindrop patter of hundreds of tiny feet. He pressed himself back against the wall as the torrent of animals flooded back into the corridor.

"I thought you'd sent them away!" He exclaimed, wincing as a large hound trod on his foot. Daine shook her head, and a dangerous smile lit her face.

"The mongrel army just went to fetch reinforcements." She quipped with her eyes gleaming. She ducked down into the pack and for a few moments disappeared under a sea of wagging tails and purring cats. It was only when he felt his legs tingling that Numair realised the floor was also thick with mice, who had chosen his legs as a good place to perch and watch the crowd. It was uncanny seeing them sit so brazenly with the cats and ratting dogs, but the animals all knew that Daine would be unspeakably horrified if they broke one of her bizarre human treaties. She stood up, and as one the crowd of animals streamed away into the shadows, each focused on their own plan and wagging their tails with delight.

"Should I just wait for the screams?" Numair asked, wondering what on earth Daine was planning. She shook her head, looking a little disappointed in him for thinking so simply.

"I wouldn't just send them after her. She'd know it was me who'd done it. I just sent the dogs back to the hall and the cats back to their haunts, that's all."

"That's all." He echoed in a voice that said, _I don't believe a word of it._

"Well, maybe not _all…"_ She raised her eyebrows at him. "It'd be no fun at all if I told you."

Again, he made an incredulous noise. "There is a certain kind of smile, magelet, which you only indulge in when you're planning something fiendishly clever."

"I had no idea I smiled so much! You've never said."

"I learned to recognise it out of pure self-preservation." He told her dryly. "Mynoss knows you've played enough tricks on me."

"Only when you deserve it." She smiled and gestured diffidently into the room. "The people won't do a thing to her that she hasn't already done to herself, Numair. Want to go and watch?"

"I thought you said you wanted to ignore the gossip."

"Oh, I'm not doing this because of the gossip. I'm doing this because she hurt my friends. No-one does that and gets away with it." Her face flashed with dark anger for a second, and then she shook off the expression and looked more cheerful. "She's lucky she yelled at me at a banquet and not when I was working. I'm fair sure she'll prefer this trick to an arrow through her foot."

"What are you going to do?" The man found that he was a little nervous. As entertaining as Daine's plans generally were, she was rarely angry enough to summon an entire castle full of animals to help her carry them out. The girl grinned suddenly, the expression lighting up her face, and offered him her arm so they could walk out together. He sighed and tactfully offered her his own, wishing that at some point during all of their lessons he had pointed out how exactly a woman was supposed to act in polite society.

"Don't be a bear, my love." She whispered, and then started laughing at the expression on his face. Of course, she had made the mistake on purpose.

"You're toying with them." He murmured back, hiding a smile. Daine raised her eyebrows at him and smiled.

"Can I escort you into the ball, my lord?"

"Only if you tell me what's going on." He retorted, and held his arm out again. Daine chewed her lip for a moment, and then grinned and took his arm.

"It will be more fun if you don't know."


	39. Names

Elizabeth Martinette had no idea which fork she should use. The evening so far had managed to crawl past with hardly anyone noticing her country mistakes, but now she was faced with a cutlery conumdrum from which she could not feign shyness to escape. It did not help that her table felt so exposed; her family was so wealthy that she had entered court with an obscenely high position. it was almost upon the dais, and although there were many people sitting on the long benches she still felt as though the eyes of the royal family would see her mistakes. She might have risked picking a fork at random, but the seats opposite her own were still empty. The gap the missing guests had left made her want to shrink away into her over-starched dress and hide. The other people around her were wrapped up in their own groups, and completely oblivious to the shy girl sitting a few inches away. And so, Elizabeth could not begin to even choose her own fork.

Her father had insisted that she attend the court, despite her mother's objections. While the lord of the tiny island insisted that his only daughter learn the courtly graces that might one day find her a husband, the lady Martinette balked at the pier and soaked her travelling robes with tears. Their island was small, but the bedrock was full of as many precious stones as their shores were rich with pearls. In exchange for this unimaginable good fortune, their ancestors had resigned themselves to constant wind, cold salty air, and utter isolation during the winter months.

Elizabeth had grown up shy, but hardy - a strange paradox who wore more jewels than many of the duchesses, yet yearned for salted fish and seaweed pie. At her first banquet in Corus she had been served a strange dish which smelled like fish, but looked more like rabbit droppings. Even if she wanted to try it, she had no idea what the correct fork would be.

She looked up from her plate as a shadow fell across it, and saw that the two latecomers had arrived. The new woman immediately pulled a face, pushed her own plate to one side and reached for the bread basket. Her grey eyes flicked around distractedly and she didn't notice she was crumbling crumbs onto her silk dress. The man followed her eyes for a moment and then shook himself out of his own pensiveness. He studied his food with satisfaction, and then noticed Elizabeth worriedly watching him. His expression did not change, but he tapped his fingers a few times against the outermost fork before he picked it up. Elizabeth smiled her gratitude and copied him.

"I don't know how you can eat that." The distracted woman said, not looking away from the other side of the room. The man made an enquiring noise, and she explained, "Doesn't it make you think about _them?"_

"It didn't until you said that. And the implication fails to make me any less ravenous." The man made a great show of piling up a large forkful of the food, and laughed when the woman mimed a shudder.

"What is it, please?" Elizabeth asked, shyly. The man looked as if he was going to make another joke until the woman poked him hard in the arm.

"They're fish eggs. Caviar, they call it." She smiled across the table and gestured to her own plate. "It's really not that bad. I just don't fancy it tonight."

"Fish also live in water. Are you going to abstain from that, too?" The man asked through a mouthful. The woman pulled a face at him.

"Don't you be clever. Besides, there's no water here tonight. Jon will be lucky if half these people are sober by midnight."

"Jon?" Elizabeth asked. The man pointed tactfully towards the dais, where someone else was picking uneasily at their fish. The girl's jaw dropped. "You don't mean...?"

"No, we probably don't." The man said, speaking more carefully now that he wasn't teasing the woman. "I apologise, as you probably guessed we've both been partaking of the libations slightly more than we should have."

"He means we haven't been drinking water." The woman supplied, seeing the girl's dazed expression. Elizabeth was still struggling for an answer when someone shrieked behind her. She whirled around to see that one of the other tables was in uproar. A woman had leapt to her feet, stamping on the floor as if she was dancing. After a few moments her frantic dance stopped, and she coloured at the titters of the watching nobles. The other people at her table beckoned her to sit down, which she did rather tentatively. Every so often she glanced suspiciously under the table.

"Huh. I think she's scared of mice." The woman at Elizabeth's table said. "I didn't know that."

Elizabeth picked her feet up from the rushes and folded them under her bench, blushing when the other woman noticed. It was embarrassing to be afraid of mice; every kitchen had the tiny creatures scurrying underfoot, even on the island. The rats were far worse, especially the great greasy creatures who lurked in the boats. Compared to them, the sweet-faced mice were practically friendly. Still, she shivered when she thought about them scurrying up her stockings and up her dress.

"I don't think they'll bother us." The woman smiled at her nervous expression and her voice took on an airy tone. "The other table probably dropped some bread on the floor."

"You've been dropping crumbs." Elizabeth pointed out, and then blushed again at her rudeness. The man grinned at her and nudged his companion.

"You see, Daine? I'm not the only one who's noticed your table manners."

"You can be ladylike for the both of us, my love."

"One of us has to." He gave a long-suffering sigh and finished off his caviar. "For example: Technically, you should introduce me to this young lady before I'm allowed to speak to her."

"I'm fair certain you've got no qualms introducing yourself to women." The girl said dryly, and winked at Elizabeth. "I'm Daine."

"Elizabeth Martinette." Said the other girl, wishing she hadn't just taken a careful mouthful of the gritty fish eggs. She swallowed it down quickly and managed a smile. Daine made a great show of turning to the man and waving a regal hand towards Elizabeth.

"Master Salmalin, allow me to introduce Mistress Martinette."

To Elizabeth's surprise, the man's playfulness disappeared, and he made a very proper greeting and kissed her hand. It seemed that even if these two were utterly unconventional, the man at least had the social conventions steeped in his veins. A small voice in the back of her mind pestered her that something about the man's name seemed familiar, but she shushed it as nonsense. Instead she risked her first genuine smile of the night, and tried her hand at making polite conversation.

"Are you here for the season, Mistress Salmalin?"

The man choked back a laugh, but the girl seemed quite unmoved. "Something like that. What about you, Mistress Marionette?"

"My father sent me to…" She reddened and couldn't finish the sentence, but the girl's sympathetic expression showed that she understood. She smiled more warmly this time, and gestured around the room.

"There are more people here for that than I've ever seen before. I guess the war made matchmaking fair tricky, but they're all here now. I reckon you'll do fine."

Elizabeth didn't miss the look which the pair of them shared after that, although she knew she probably wasn't supposed to be looking at things like that. Most of the nobles she had met so far had been so cool and polite with one another that it was hard to tell which ones were married, and which were outright enemies. She had spent hours gradually growing more miserable about her prospects here, surrounded by people who thought that laughing was something best done in private.

It was such a relief to see people acting affectionately around each other that she forgot to be uncomfortable about their constant gibes at each other. Curiosity made her bold, and she asked:

"How did you…erm…?"

"Us?" The woman smiled at her and planted her elbows on the table, leaning forward as if she was confiding a secret. "I fell off a cliff and he followed me. I'm fair sure if I'd said no we'd've gone right back to the top so he could push me off and try again."

"You didn't say no." The man had stopped laughing and tucked a strand of his wife's hair behind her ear. "I should have asked you more questions, shouldn't I … Mistress Salmalin?"

To Elizabeth's surprise the other girl reddened. She had thought Daine was completely unflappable, but at the man's half-teasing, half-serious tone she bit her lip as if she was just as shy as the newcomer. Her quiet reply was drowned out by the sound of the servants bringing in the great platters of meat and fish that made up the rest of the meal, and by the time everything was settled the couple seemed quite composed again. Just as everyone was starting to dig in to their meal there was another shriek from the other table, and this time the woman pushed herself so far away from the food that she half-fell off the bench. The man sitting next to her caught her arm and yanked her back upright in an undignified, quivering lump.

"Well." Daine said, sipping from her wine goblet calmly. "She's not going to overcome her fear if she keeps shrieking at them. It'll just make them nervous, and then they'll ask their friends to come and help…"

"Mice don't do that." Elizabeth pointed out. The woman shrugged and looked over at the woman with some satisfaction.

"The ones here are quite clever." She spoke slowly, as if she was inventing the story as she went along. Her husband speared a few pieces of meat from the platter and carefully served them out onto Elizabeth's plate, then Daine's.

"Normally the mice would be more cautious, but tonight they're in luck." He explained in the same thoughtful way. He looked around at his wife and raised his eyebrows as if he was asking her a question. "I heard someone scared all the dogs away from the hall."

"What a silly thing to do." Daine replied in the kind of false voice players used when they had rehearsed their lines. "Any idiot knows that the terriers keep the mice away."

"What about the cats?" Elizabeth asked, playing along with whatever game these two were playing. They both smiled at her at the same time, and she wondered if she'd somehow won a point. They both looked as if she had worked out a riddle. She felt oddly warm at the thought of their approval, and joined in their joking happily.

Daine was watching her prey intently. After the mice had struck, the noble woman had started to drink more deeply. She had shot a few glares towards the wildmage, but there was no way to prove that Daine had anything to do with the mice. It sometimes happened when the kennel master took the dogs away from the hall, and it was clear that none of the mongrels had stayed after she had attacked them. She was clever enough to keep her silence, but of course she glared.

Elizabeth couldn't help wondering who on earth these people were. To be seated at this high table they must be very important, or at least very rich. Most of the people she had been placed next to by the matronly chaperones or the head of stewards had been dukes or knights, people who either held great lands or who had defended them from the terrors of the Immortals war. Elizabeth had learned before the end of her first dance that her set's hands would either be heavy with rings, or rough with callouses.

The couple sitting opposite her did not look rich. Their clothes were as fine as any in the court, but there was something awkward in the way the girl wore them that made Elizabeth think she wasn't used to wearing such fine fabric. They wore jewellery, too: the man wore rings and a jewelled pin in his tunic, and the girl had a intricate silver chain around her neck with a heavy pendant tucked into her bodice. But that was odd, too, because the woman wore no earbobs or rings, and her intricate hair style was unadorned.

If Elizabeth had been a little more worldly she might have wondered why the woman was there, but not the man. Despite his unusual build and tanned skin colour he would have fit in with most of the people here, had it not been for the way he and the woman were acting. Daine was the one who really stood out, and she was the one who smelled of cold water rather than perfume. In another court, with another companion, the girl would have been dismissed as the same peasant maid a hundred hot-blooded rich men had coaxed into their beds a hundred times before. But because of her naivety, Elizabeth could not see them as anything other than a pair - and as a pair, she could see that they were not wealthy, nor noble.

Looking at them, Elizabeth felt the cold weight of her own jewellery and felt a little sheepish. She had chosen only a few of her father's gifts to wear tonight, but even their delicate beauty felt ostentatious. Pushing aside her embarrassment, she finished the last of her starter and delicately wiped her mouth, watching the strangers greeting the people to either side. No, they weren't rich, at least not by her family's standards.

The alternative was that they were knights. The thought made the girl's mouth twitch, and she raised her napkin to hide the expression. The man was hardly built to swing a weapon; when he had sat down his long legs had made him move in a stork-like, ungainly manner which would have made a training master weep. The girl was impossible, of course - Elizabeth had heard stories about women being treated differently in this court, but even she could see that the girl was too small and slight to face down enemies with a sword in her hand.

"Have you figured it out yet?" The man asked suddenly. Elizabeth jumped and looked up guiltily, but he was smiling. She was wondering how her thoughts had been so obvious when the woman pulled a face.

"I'm fair sure you play that trick every time a stranger looks at you, love."

"At least I try to fit in. As soon as you open your mouth people start looking for the Gallan entourage."

"We're mages." The woman said, making her accent as obvious as possible. "I figure your castle has maybe one or two, but here you'll be steppin' over us in the hallways. It takes some noble people a fair bit of time to get used to it."

Elizabeth nodded quickly at that before she wondered if she was being rude. The mages on her island were serious men who spent as much time reading as they did shoring up old runes and bewitching fishing nets. They had been at the castle for so long that they seemed a part of the rafters, bound to the building as much as the people and about as mysterious as a glass of water. Any young mages who showed talent were sent to the mainland to study, and she knew some of them must have ended up here - and that was the strange thing.

Any man could decide to join the army, but he would always be a soldier and never a knight. Any woman could come to the capital to make her fortune, but only the noble born would do it in a ball gown and not a skivvy's apron. If you had the gift, it didn't matter if you had been born in a palace or a pig pen. If you were powerful enough, and trained hard enough, then you could rise all the way to the top.

It was said that centuries ago, noble families had intermarried with the powerful mages so that their bloodline would inherit the magic they needed to hold on to their power. Even the Conte bloodline was thick with power - and who knew where it had come from? It was common knowledge that powerful mages came from powerful lords. A common man with the gift was lucky; a wealthy man with the gift had gifted ancestors.

For this reason, powerful mages held a truly bizarre social status. Most people would assume they were noble, and treat them with deference and their magic with respect. Many nobles would be suspicious of them, demanding that they hold a lower place at table and treating them as nothing more than glorified soldiers until they had proven their nobility.

King Jonathan was known to have the utmost respect for mages in his kingdom, but it didn't follow that his subjects echoed the sentiment. People also whispered that he had his own reasons for welcoming the common mages into the hallways of the elite: who knew what twisted things needed to be done, to keep a kingdom in check? A noble mage was a noble first, and every serf would recognise his face. A common mage could be a spy, or a thief, or an assassin… all hiding behind the perfect mask of a normal man.

"What kind of mages…are you?" She asked awkwardly. "Healers?"

"I am." The woman said smoothly. She nodded at her husband and her voice grew a little warmer, more respectful. "Master Salmalin is a war mage."

There was that name again! Elizabeth was sure she had heard it before. Just as she was starting to put the name to the idea of a mage, Daine made an odd laughing sound and looked away. Getting a little frustrated with their strange moods, Elizabeth excused herself and went to find the privy.

Daine had not meant to be rude; her eyes had fallen onto the noble woman's table, and she couldn't hide her laughter. The extra wine the woman was drinking seemed to have gone to her head; she started flinching a little whenever she looked around, and rubbed her eyes as if she was dizzy. Daine was a little disappointed, thinking the woman would probably excuse herself before long. Then she heard the soft words that Numair was whispering under his breath. His eyes were fixed on the woman, and under the table his fingers were tracing a shape onto the air.

Daine looked back more carefully, shaping her eyes so she could see as keenly as a hawk. The woman turned and caught sight of herself in a silver tureen. Instead of a beautiful woman, the reflection briefly flared with an image of an ancient hag. Then, just when the woman had torn her eyes away from that the image disappeared, and the next time she looked it was completely normal. Daine recognised the same trick that Numair had played on her, when he had enchanted her reflection to have blue hair.

"Do you want to actually drive her insane?" She murmured, catching his hand and holding it still. Numair's eyes refocused, and he shrugged.

"It might stop her from staring at herself in the looking glass every time she passes one. Who knows, it might actually make her less shallow."

"You stare in the mirror a lot." The girl absently took a sip of her own wine, and almost missed the withering glance her lover aimed at her.

"Would you rather I was ugly, Mistress Sarrasri?"

"I don't much care, but I'm fair sure I'd rather decide that for myself and not listen to a piece of spelled glass."

"You don't care." He repeated dryly. "Aren't you supposed to be flirting with me?"

"Oh, I beg your sweet pardon." She waved a hand pompously and drained the rest of her glass. "You have nice thumbs. Is that enough for you?"

"I feel like the rest of my hand should be included in that. You can't do much with just a pair of thumbs." He retorted without thinking, and only then noticed the wicked grin on the girl's face.

"I'm willing to barter… if you're prepared to prove that."

He reddened and got up to find a page to refill their wine flagon. Daine smiled and glanced over at Mari. Her friend had been right; it was far easier to catch Numair off guard than it was to make up ridiculous poetry. She only belatedly remembered to look at the girl opposite them, wondering if the poor woman would be mortified at her crude joke. To her relief, the woman had started speaking with one of the lordlings on her other side, and had missed the whole exchange. Elizabeth only looked around again when Numair returned, and this time she didn't stutter quite as much when he offered to fill her wine glass.

Elizabeth relaxed as they ate their way through brisket, roasted vegetables and freshly baked bread with more chutneys and sauces than the girl had ever seen before in her life. Daine explained that the nobles had gotten used to eating preserves while fresh food was rationed, and now that the farms were able to grow fresh food they still heaped it onto their plates. Looking at the table, Elizabeth could see far more of the peasant food than she would have imagined; alongside the rich sauces and steaming meat there were pickles, sauerkraut and dried strips of jerky. She also noticed that both of her strange companions favoured the simpler food. Unlike most of the other tables, their richer platters were nearly untouched.

The woman in particular started to pick at her food long before her husband noticed. When he did, he caught her hand and held it, murmuring something that Elizabeth could not overhear. While he was speaking both of them glanced over at the royal dais, where the king had finished his main course and was looking around the room with lively interest. An air of nervous energy seemed to come off Daine and affect her partner; he forgot to let go of her hand, and pushed away his own plate.

"What's wrong?" Elizabeth only realised that she was being nosy when the words were already spoken, and she pressed her napkin over her mouth in sudden embarrassment. This time neither of the others laughed or made a joke, but it seemed to break them out of their trance. Daine broke off a crumb of cheese; Master Salmalin ran his fingers self-consciously through his hair, but their hands stayed firmly linked.

"He's going to make an announcement about us." Daine said quietly. "It's the only reason we're here tonight."

"Aren't you having fun?" Elizabeth could not imagine anyone being unhappy about a royal invitation, even though she herself had felt shy and awkward, she was also awestruck by the splendour of this place. Daine seemed to shake herself out of her morose thoughts and nodded, smiling a little, but her eyes still sought out the king.

"How do you think he'll do it?" She asked. Her husband shrugged and reached for his own wine.

"The simplest way would be to tell everyone we're engaged."

"But that's a lie." The woman scowled at Jon as if he had already said it. "If he tries that I'll argue with him in front of all of these people, no matter how ladylike you all want me to act."

"Wait, you're not married?" Elizabeth blurted out. Both of them shook their heads - the man rather apologetically, while the woman was so emphatic her curls sprung free of her hair style. The young woman bit back most of her questions, and instead thought back to their easy intimacy and marvelled at how stupid she had been, thinking they were a married couple when all along she had been consorting with…

"Don't worry." The man said, his voice a little cool. "I'm sure you won't be tainted by association."

"I thought you were married." The girl mumbled, and blushed so hotly she felt her ears glowing. She couldn't imagine these two breaking apart for other people, and so she added, "You act like you're married."

"We don't need to get married." Daine's voice was stubborn. "The only reason Jon's being such an ass is because everyone's telling stories about us. He'd better not make up another lie, Numair. I'm fair sure the nice stories will be just as awful as the horrible ones."

"I'd rather be betrothed than be a scheming lech, thank you."

"Well, it's a good thing you had all those years with your women to prove you're not like that, isn't it? And the whole reason they believe that story is because they don't think you're the marrying kind."

"And they think you're a stupid child." He returned, just as sharply. "Are you going to yell at me just because you've imagined Jon saying something bad?"

"I'm not yelling! I…" Daine started, and then caught sight of Elizabeth's expression and drew back. Taking a deep breath, she smiled wryly and sipped her wine. "Alright, I'm sorry for yelling at you."

"Will you marry me, Daine?"

She grinned grudgingly, "Why, to make Jon's job a little easier?"

"Why else? At some point I have to find the right reason to get you to agree."

"Ask Jon to marry you." She suggested, and laughed when he shoved at her shoulder playfully. Elizabeth had watched all of this with frozen awe.

"He just asked you to marry him." She whispered to Daine, barely breathing. The other woman rolled her eyes.

"Yes, he does that a lot."

"But…" Elizabeth tried and failed to find articulate words. "He asked you to _marry_ him."

The woman opened her mouth to make another retort, and then stopped short and looked around at the man. Elizabeth saw him shake his head a little, and guessed that he must have stepped on the woman's foot under the table. Meeting his eyes for a moment, Daine seemed to fade from a sharp, witty creature into someone more sympathetic and, inexplicably, older. For the first time since they had sat down, Elizabeth thought that the couple sitting opposite her were perfectly matched. Their playfulness could have been a mask, hiding real squabbles and flaws beneath, but she could understand something far deeper in the silent way they seemed to read each other.

"I guess," Daine said, taking a slow breath and putting her fork down, "That you're here to find a husband. Your family sent you, but you wanted to come. Is that right?"

The young woman nodded, unsure of Daine's meaning but willing to confide that much. After all, most of the courtiers could say the same thing. And she had spent her entire childhood being taught the tricks and tasks which would serve her well here, and as a married woman. Her mother had been born to the sea, but even she had taught her delicate manners in her rough, salt-burned voice. Her father had bedecked her in jewels and made her see the world which the ships disappeared in to, where they made warm furs and rich silk and where wheat grew in the open fields. She had learned that her life was beyond the island, just as her brother had been tied to the bedrock.

Master Salmalin spoke a little formally, but with sincerity. "We see men and women sent here by their families in the hope that they will make a strong match, never mind looking to their own hearts or futures. It must be difficult, but I have nothing but respect for the people who honour their families so strongly. Please don't be hurt by our teasing. We weren't trying to demean the path the gods have set before you."

"We don't have any lands, serfs or riches to barter over, and neither of us has an ancient name worth sharing." Daine said softly. "Or else maybe people would push us to do the honourable thing, too."

"How do you think names begin, Daine?" The man asked quietly, and then excused himself and left the table. For a few minutes both of the women sat in silence, cowed by the sudden seriousness in the air, and then Daine looked up and her eyes sharpened. Elizabeth craned her head around and just caught sight of a tail darting underneath a table.

"The cats are here." Daine mumured, and smiled slowly. This time, Elizabeth didn't have to look around to hear where they shrieks were coming from. There was a great rasping of furniture across the stone floor, and suddenly plates were crashing and food was spilling on to the ground. Underneath the table which had just been shoved over were hundreds of mice, which streamed out in a squeaking flood as hordes of mangy cats tore through them.

Daine would have told her companion to look more closely, to see that the cats were all hiss and no claw, but in all the chaos it was impossible to tell. Women and men were shrieking, stamping at the floor and tearing at their clothes, but every single cat and mouse darted away into the shadows before a single boot could land a blow.

The room was stunned for a moment, and then someone started to laugh. Everyone who had been sitting at the ruined table was covered in spilled food and dripping with wine. Some had torn parts of their own clothes off, or had stepped in the mess the mice had made beneath the table. The worst off was a woman who had needed to claw both mice and cats off her body as they even streamed into her hair. She glared around with drunken fury, her eyes so wide that the irises were pinpricks in the glassy whites. There was nothing she could say, though, that would make the scores of nobles stop laughing at her. Finally, growling in fury, she tore herself away from her companions and ran out of the hall.

Elizabeth had wondered if her companions had anything to do with the chaos across the room. They had seemed unusually captivated by the other table all night. When she tore her eyes away from the chaos and looked back around at them they both looked quite calm. The man had slipped back during the chaos, and the woman had cuddled close enough to lean her head against his shoulder. While they watched the uproar he wrapped his arm around her waist, and it was hard to believe that the expressions on their faces were anything more sinister than simple contentment.

No, Elizabeth decided. She felt guilty for even thinking it.

But just before she looked away, she could have sworn a mouse ran out of the woman's sleeve.


	40. Trusted

A loud fanfare blared across the room, and several people groaned and covered their ears with their hands. The wine had been rich and plentiful, and the courtiers of Tortall enjoyed their king's hospitality with a dedicated enthusiasm which put most tavern goers to shame. Even several people at the high dais winced, but against the uproar the king looked quite sober and alert. His eyes were sharp, and he looked over the assembled guests levelly as he stood up.

Daine and Numair looked as if they were frozen in to place. He knew that they had been drinking, too, but unlike most of the courtiers the liquor had served only to make them more nervous, not relaxed. Jon could have shaken them both: gods knew that if they had treated this banquet as a celebration rather than as some kind of ordeal than the gossips might have been less virulent. As it was, his steward had whispered to him that Mistress Sarrasri had vanished for half an hour, and that some of the castle animals were in an uproar, and that a noblewoman was in drunken hysterics in the healer's wing shrieking something about her own reflection and…

…well, better that she be frightened than banished. Jon had been told about the ambush the woman had trapped Daine with. If her father had not been the steward of merchant commerce, he might have thrown her out onto the streets. As it was, Thayet had dug her nails into his arm and kept him in his seat, murmuring that he was a king tonight, dearest, not a nursemaid, and his ducklings could swim very well without his help.

"You're mixing your metaphors." He'd growled sulkily. The woman smiled sweetly and sipped at her mead, raising her arched eyebrows towards the noblewoman's table. From the dais, the swarm of mice which streamed from the floorboards under her bench was quite obvious. Jon sighed and relaxed.

"Didn't we tell them to behave themselves?" He asked wearily. Thayet laughed.

After the fanfare, looking over the upturned faces of his subjects, Jon realised that he needed to scratch his nose. It was an act of superhuman strength to keep his hands regally clasped in front of him, and begin his speech.

"We are all here tonight to celebrate the end of the war. It has been many weeks now, and yet every time I address this room I see more reasons to rejoice - more faces looking up at me, more people laughing, more of our dear friends come back to us alive and well. And as I look, I also see things which are not there, the faces of those who we have lost and the sorrow of those who will not laugh again. Tonight we celebrate that their loss was not in vain, and that the love which kept them fighting has given so many of us the chance to be together tonight." He raised his goblet in a toast, and took the chance to scratch his nose while the nobles drank from their own glasses. When they were settled once again, he perched on the edge of the table and ignored Thayet's pointed, meaningful cough at the un-kingly conduct. Beckoning to his squire, he took a scroll and unrolled it with some pomp.

"Now, I know you're all longing to get back to your wine and conversation, so I'll make this quick." He cleared his throat to make sure they were listening and began again. "I have a few promotions and appointments to share unofficially tonight, before they are proclaimed by the criers tomorrow morning. These are all ratified by the small chamber and stewards of the castle, as well as the appropriate… ah." He frowned and planted a finger against the scroll, clearly looking for his place. Most of the courtiers were smiling openly now, the wine and their king's playful way of speaking making them relax and joke with each other. A few called out suggestions on how the king might learn how to read before the next banquet, which Jon grinned at before waving for silence.

"First, several lords and ladies are attending whose homes were overrun or destroyed. Our soldiers will be despatched in turn to assist with recovering your lands, and in the meantime we put our city at your disposal. You are all most welcome." He raised his head and smiled around the room, making eye contact with a few men and women who smiled back and bowed deeply as he called out their names. Polite applause followed, and he waved his hand again for silence. "Second, we are expecting many new recruits to our pages, riders and mage academy in the coming year. I am entrusting their safety and conduct to the care of this court. Do you swear to me your assistance?"

The chorus of oaths was as loud as the applause had been, and many of the nobles began telling each other of the recruits who they had brought with them from their own lands. Under the roar of sound they could barely hear the names which the king listed off… _Queenscove… Mindelan…_

There was something relieved about the king as the noise abated, and he smiled openly at the gathering. "Now, with all these eager young champions flooding our gates, I suspect that we need to give them the best guidance our own experiences can afford. This brings me to the last part of my speech - don't worry, it's nearly over!" He waited for the laughter to die down, and then continued more seriously.

"If this war has taught me anything, it is that we need to be as strong as we can just to survive. We cannot pretend that we are safe behind stone walls. We need to shape our minds and our lives to protect the people we love, and to defend this kingdom which shelters us all. I have decided to appoint our most powerful warriors, mages, healers and spies to instruct whoever wishes to learn about how to survive in this new world of ours. To this end - every enlisted knight or mage may be called upon to teach during the winter months, here in Corus. Extra lodgings and training facilities will be built this year, alongside the repairs to the castle. Permanent residences have already been allocated for those who have already proven their strength and loyalty beyond question, and to whom I entrust the safety and education of my own children."

A stunned silence followed this, followed by a rising round of applause. What the king was suggesting was unprecedented. This time, Jon stopped the applause and listed off the names to eagerly expectant ears, not even tolerating a whisper between their names. _The Lord of Pirate's Swoop and Sir Alanna, the King's Champion, shall reside in… The Archmage Salmalin and the Wildmage Veralidaine are commanded to reside in…_

The list was long, but every name on it was met with smiles and nods of approval. For the first time since the war began, the lords and ladies of Tortall could see a glimpse of a future where they and their children would be safer, wiser about the monsters which had ravaged their homes, and far better able to defend themselves. The hopeful courtiers saw a school where anyone could learn, and where every tutor would know exactly what they were likely to face outside of the stone walls. They listened to the list with rapt attention, and when Jon finished the applause lasted for so long the walls rang with the sound.

"It puts everything into perspective, doesn't it?" Numair asked Daine, looking a little dazed. She laughed weakly and clutched her hands together. For the first time since Jon had began speaking, they weren't trembling.

"We're moving house again." She said giddily. "And I guess we're teachers now."

"Commanded to live together." He teased her, tweaking her nose before adding more seriously, "I feel foolish for thinking that he was going to single us out. If I hadn't been so worried then I wouldn't have even thought it; Jon is far more clever than that."

"What will you teach?" A voice asked them, and they both jumped and looked up at the young woman whose shy face was now alive with interest. "You're them, aren't you? The wildmage and the… the…"

"Stork man." Daine supplied, recovering her sense of humour and laughing when Numair scowled and flicked her empty goblet over. She reached over and took his hand, nuzzling against it like a cat until he laughed and pulled away. By this time the girl's stunned realisation had faded, and she looked less awed. "Yes, maybe we should have told you."

"No, don't worry." The girl plonked her elbows down on the table and leaned forwards, suddenly so unladylike it was laughable. "But do tell me what you're going to teach! I've always wanted to… to…"

"You don't have the gift." Numair said softly, and Daine shot him a dark look until he shrugged and apologised. The blushing girl returned the shrug and smiled ruefully.

"I'm not a boy either. But I've always wanted to know. I've always wanted to learn. And now mama isn't here, and…"

"The second we know what we're teaching, we'll send you an invitation to sit on the front row." Numair interrupted stridently. His fierce expression faded a little, and he grinned. "We've only been teachers for two minutes, Mistress Martinette. Even if our minds raced as fast as your own, we'd still need longer to work on our boring speeches and lesson plans."

"I'm sure they won't be boring." The girl said mulishly. Daine laughed and stretched lazily in her chair.

"I figure it gives us something to do while we're stuck here." She drawled, and then lowered her arms around Numair's neck and leaned closer to kiss him. "We'd better not argue over our lessons, Numair. Jon's ordered us to live together, you know."

"I'll win any argument long before you've got your boots on, magelet."

"Is that so!" The girl raised shocked eyebrows at Elizabeth, who giggled. Numair sighed and made a show of putting Daine down.

"It's not fair if you gang up on me."

"What was that, my love? I couldn't hear you over the sound of you _losing the argument."_

He laughed and stood up. "I'm going to go and thank his majesty for making me sort out my books three times this week. Are you coming?"

Daine smiled and stood up. Elizabeth stood up, too, and curtseyed a little awkwardly to them.

"I'm going to bed." She said, and then added a little shyly. "It was really nice meeting you."

"We'll find you again," Daine promised, and then thought about how that sounded and added, "If you'd like that."

"Yes." Elizabeth grinned then, a sudden mischievous spark which lit up her whole body. The older girl grinned back, and returned her awkward curtsey with the most outrageously wobbly bob Elizabeth had ever seen.

Jon was surrounded by courtiers when they reached him. He caught their eye almost at once and reached out to clasp both their hands, waved aside their thanks, and then ducked back into the mob. Daine and Numair decided it was best to thank him properly in the morning. Unlike the courtiers, they had more than this one night to speak to the king. Some of them, the ones whose homes had been destroyed, were in tears as they babbled their thanks.

They returned to the table and found a new group of people gathered around them - relaxed men and women who were enjoying the wine and the slow, languid late hour. They welcomed the two mages with wide grins and open arms, pouring them overfull glasses of wine and drawing them into the conversation. It seemed to be entirely about one of the group's unfortunate, amorous exploits with an orchard farmer and his suspicious mother - a bull of a woman, who had a nose which could sniff out two young men in an apple loft and a broom which cared not whose buttocks it swept. The man who was telling the story had the group in tears of laughter as he mimed his horror at the oncoming broom and at the woman's face.

Nearly an hour passed, and Daine felt more relaxed with these laughing strangers than she had for most of the night. She cuddled back in Numair's arms and felt his body shake when he laughed, felt the way that he held his breath when the storyteller drew out the suspense. She wondered how she must feel - after a few glasses of wine she had started laughing at one of the stories and couldn't quite stop, and nearly everything made her giggle after that.

Most of the hall was empty when the servants brought around another round of desserts, knowing the tipsy nobles would eat any leftovers put in front of them. The one Daine was handed was a cold pudding which could be eaten with a spoon. Daine took the chance to hold Numair's hand, enjoying the freedom of being able to be affectionate in public, and loving the small smile which they shared.

"Did I tell you how lovely you are?" He murmured, squeezing her fingers. Daine nodded and fiddled with her skirt self-consciously, and he shook his head. "Not your dress, beautiful. I mean you. Your beautiful eyes and those freckles under your eyes, and the way your hair curls down you back…"

She blushed, as he had known she would, and looked down at her plate. He caught her chin and kissed her lightly. "You even blush divinely."

A wolf whistle from across the room broke them up, and they both laughed and took their teasing in good humour. Daine shook off her dazed emotions with a stern voice crowing in her mind, _You're letting him win! It's just like Mari said, he only has to look at you and you're besotted._

She bit her lip and then came to a decision. When he caught up her hand again she slid a little bit closer and rested both of their hands on his knee. It was not even enough for an onlooker to object to, but since no-one could see under the table she slowly moved her hand higher and higher. Numair was too caught up in talking to one of the knights to think she was doing anything on purpose until she could go no higher, and he choked over whatever sentence he had been halfway through.

He had enough sense to fake a coughing fit, and Daine helpfully handed him a glass of water with the hand that was not very busy distracting him. He shot her a look as he sipped the water, and she smiled sweetly back at him.

"What do you think about the king's plans?" An old man was asking, his beard dipping unheeded into his dessert. Numair took another sip of water and placed it carefully on the table.

"The people will need time to adjust. We all need more… more time. Maybe it'd be wise to stop… stop taxing them for a few years."

"I agree." Daine looked innocently at her partner. "We don't want to make things harder for them."

"But will the lords see it that way? You know that they need to rebuild. If our defences are weak then where will the serfs be protected?"

One of the other men answered that, and Daine glanced sidelong at Numair with a mischievous smile. He looked like he was arguing with himself. As dark as his eyes were when he warningly met her own, his hand slid over her own and moved it more purposefully. She happily obliged.

"Aren't you hungry, Daine?" He forced out in a strangled, polite voice. Daine shook her head with a polite smile and picked up her spoon with her free hand.

"It's delicious," She said, and people nodded down the table in agreement. The girl put down her spoon. "But to be honest I'm fair tired. I just can't wait to get into bed and out of these silly clothes. Don't you think it'd be more fun coming to these banquets wearing tunics, ladies?" She smiled at the women opposite her, who laughed and added their own comments about overtight corsets, overlong skirts and pointless, irritating frills which always seemed to bustle in the wrong place.

"Don't get me wrong. They look nice." Daine mused, gesturing to the other ladies with a dainty bow. "What do you think, Numair? Do you think I look nice?"

"Are you fishing for compliments, now?"

"I'm hurt that I even have to ask!"

"Subtlety has never been your strong point." He laughed shortly and the glare he gave her was such a perfect mixture of helpless need and anger that Daine couldn't resist leaning closer and kissing him. While the rest of the table treated them to a few drunken whistles, the man made a great show of looking at her dress. He probably only meant to play along, then he noticed the loose ribbon Mari had left at the back. Daine could feel him shiver a little before he managed, "Very nice, magelet."

"Very nice! That's hardly a compliment! And he says he loves me." The girl pouted, and moved her hand faster. Numair choked out a laugh and rested his head in his hands, his fingers trembling a little. Daine made her voice sound angry when really she just wanted to laugh. "If he doesn't like it I don't know why I should suffer in this silly corset. I swear when I get home I'll just tear it off and throw it in the fire."

"We have to go now." Numair said as the other banqueters laughed. His words sounded rather desperate. "I think… I'm not used to such rich food."

"Are you alright?" Daine asked in the sweetest, most innocent voice she could muster, carrying on being as far from innocent as she could under the table. Numair glared at her and then coughed and excused himself, almost dragging himself away from the table. Daine watched him go with a rueful expression and made a great show of sighing.

"Well, I guess I'd better see if he's alright."

She made her way across the room to the secret exit and pushed aside the first panel of cloth. Numair pulled her behind the tapestries and, his breath heavy, almost dragged her into the shadows of the hidden corridor. Daine stopped him in the first pool of darkness, throwing her arms around his neck and kissing him so passionately she forgot to breathe. His arms tightened around her and lifted her up, pressing her back against the wall and holding her there.

"You absolute witch." He whispered, kissing her in between every word. "Do you have any idea what would have happened if you'd been caught?"

"Me? I'm fair sure you were just as bad." She laughed, and ran her hand back down his body to remind him of just how bad he had been. He cursed and kissed her again, pulling her so close that she could feel the hardness of him, the desperate need that made him thrust against her even when they were both fully clothed. She lowered her hand again and watched his face, loving the way that his eyes closed and opened full of anger and pleading and heat.

"Daine - I need…"

"Tell me I've won." She whispered, and laughed when he made a strangled sound and tried to kiss her. Moving her hips, she pressed against him as if they were really making love, and when his hands started moving her in a demanding rhythm she caught his ear between her teeth. "Tell me I've won, but don't be too loud, my love, or they'll hear you."

He caught her lips to kiss her deeply, then growled a curse. The fabric between them was so frustrating, and yet he could not stop the urgent instinct of his body for a single moment. His breathing grew so ragged that he couldn't speak, and when she wrapped her legs around his hips and returned his desperate thrusting he couldn't have stopped himself even if he wanted to. He groaned deeply, burying his face against her throat to muffle the sound. Daine wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed herself as close as she could until his shuddering stopped and then she kissed his ear playfully.

"I won." She said happily, and laughed when he shakily lowered her to the floor. His face was a perfect mixture of desire, rueful mischievousness and embarrassment.

"Why is it that whenever we play a game we always end up doing something stupid?" He asked, forgetting to whisper as he struggled to catch his breath. "If anyone had seen me… heard us…"

"You started it."

"Mistress Sarrasri, I would like to remind you that I started this game by flirting with a beautiful lady like any refined and polite gentleman would. I did not expect to lose it by embarrassing myself behind a tapestry with an shameless little temptress." He grinned at her to take the sting out of his words, and kissed her playfully on the end of her nose. "I forgot how determined you always are to win, magelet."

"Last time it only took a burning building falling on me. That wasn't so stupid." She pointed out with some dignity. He shook his head, laughing.

"I'm determined to win one of your games before I die. Would you like a rematch?"

"Who's hiding in here?" A voice called out. They both jumped and looked around, seeing the wavering shadow of a man further along the corridor. He wouldn't be able to see or hear anything in the darkness, but of course he could see their silhouettes. They jumped apart, straightening their clothes as best they could while the man walked closer.

"What's this?" The stranger demanded, stomping forward in the heavy studded boots all the castle guards wore. He peered into the shadows at the two silhouettes who had been hiding behind the barrier. "What are you two up to?"

"Magic lesson." Daine spoke up at exactly the same time Numair blurted out, "Fixing a broken rune." They both glanced at each other as the guard drawled:

"Fixed now, is it?"

"Thoroughly." The girl muttered under her breath. Numair heard her and hid a smile behind his hand. The guard looked at them severely until they both cleared their throats and tried to look sensibly back. The man scowled.

"Bit late for a magic lesson, I'd say. I don't hold with people hiding in dark corners in the keep… whatever they say they're getting up to."

"Sorry." Daine mumbled. "We weren't…"

He held up a mailed hand. "I don't want to hear it. I do know I won't be hearing anything else from you two in my corridors tonight, don't I?"

"Yes sir." They chorused.

"And not tomorrow neither, nor next week." He shook his head. "If you can't practice your runes in your own rooms then there's lots of cold water in the moat. I'll happily throw you in if I catch you here again. Got it?"

"Got it." Numair leaned forward and shook the man's hand. "You have our word, sir. You won't catch us again."


	41. Loose End

Numair had worked out that Daine was in a bad mood the moment the rabbit began to speak, and had tactfully brought her a cup of tea before the animal had left. Her bad mood hadn't been helped by the angry pounding on their door, nor by the surly squire who demanded to speak to her. He had seen then rabbit - filthy, flea-ridden rodent - lollopping up the grand staircase and making a beeline for their room. Did the farm girl know that respectable people lived in this part of the castle? He made a great show of scowling at the cats and waving a hand in front of his nose. He'd be having a word with the steward, he promised it, and whatever _you people_ were used to _polite company…_

"Polite company?" Daine asked, planting her hands on her hips, "Who would that be?"

He sniffed and pulled a face at the imaginary smell of dung. "Of course you don't know."

"You bite your toenails off and leave them on the floor." She folded her arms and set her chin stubbornly. "You're not so high-and-mighty."

The man reddened and leaned back. "You're a nasty, nosy little spy!"

"Well done, you figured it out." She grinned and took a step closer, dangerously irked now. "And the king pays me to do it. Who were you going to complain about me to?"

The man blustered, made a few more cutting remarks, and had no chance to really form words before the wildmage slammed the door in his face. She spun around, scowling, and herded the cats back into the main room.

"We need to make a… a bolthole, or something." She said, scanning the walls with narrowed eyes. "It's not safe for the people to be slipping on those tiled stairs."

"I'll find the architect's notes in the library." Numair promised, and stepped over to raise her chin. She sighed and looked back rather mulishly, and he ruffled her hair. "Go for a walk, sweet."

Before she got back, Numair had gathered all of the blueprints into a stack on the table, and was captivated by the architect's history of the crypts. It seemed like a year would barely be enough to understand one floor of the castle, let alone all of its tunnels and secrets. He wasn't too worried about keeping himself occupied for the whole year, but likewise he wasn't at all surprised that Daine was feeling claustrophobic. She always felt trapped when she was upset, and a year away from the woods was a daunting prospect.

He was trying to work out how he could tell her not to worry, when he noticed something odd. When Daine had been speaking to the rabbit she had been pulling open the drawers on their work cabinet, looking for the right medicines to use. Something was shining in one of them. He glanced in, and pulled the charm out slowly. For a moment his whole body was quite still, and then he gently returned the amulet to its place and sat back down. Taking up the architecture book, he tried to concentrate on reading and not listen to the worried voice in the back of his head.

An hour later, when Daine came home, he had managed to distract himself so successfully that he didn't feel angry any more, and so he greeted her with a smile and decided to be tactful. It was difficult. He found himself glancing distractedly at her throat, and when he saw the second silver pendant on her chain he relaxed. His anxious energy channelled itself into curiosity, instead, and he wondered exactly what questions he should ask. Perhaps, he told himself, she would tell him in her own time.

The charm had looked old. He decided it could wait a little longer. It had already waited for long enough.

"I don't know if I can stay here for a year." Daine said, putting the box she was carrying onto the table. The glass vials inside it chimed, and she opened the casket to make sure that none had broken in between the glass-blower's workshop and their new rooms.

The blown glass vials were the cheap, misshapen attempts of the apprentices, and some of them would never stand upright if they tried. They looked almost liquid in their chaotic differences, but none of them had cracked. The girl breathed a sigh of relief and packed them back into the straw. The glass master sold these vials to her cheaply, but they were still painfully expensive. If the potions she was making didn't react so badly in copper and bone flasks she would have saved a fortune over the years. She remembered the first time she had tried to pour a burn salve into a bronze jar and winced. Who knew that oil could burn green?

While she had been walking to the industrial district the animals in the city had crowded around to greet her, but there was something about the paved streets that made her feel smothered. Every time the birds flew overhead she wondered where they were going, and if she would ever be able to follow them. Jonathan's command made sense: she was the only person who could speak to the sirens. She was just as inspired as he was to begin teaching the new pages once the autumn began. But that was only a few months residence; the thought of staying in this stone city for a whole year made her skin crawl.

"It won't be a year." Numair said, looking back up from his book. Daine sighed and took a vial to the work desk.

"Are you saying that because of your mysterious trap?"

"I might be."

"It's been two weeks, Numair. Whatever it is, I don't think they're going to fall for it if they haven't by now."

She carefully turned off the oil burner which had been heating up a metal bowl, and blew steam away from the bubbling liquid. It smelled sour and pungent, but the crystals of metal salt which she had measured into it had all dissolved. Moving carefully, she shifted her hands into the heatproof scales of a desert lizard and poured the scant ounces of liquid into one of the new vials. It steamed, but it was already starting to thicken and set.

When it was cool it was one of the most effective anti-venom salves she knew… if you were poisoned by being bitten by burrowing insects in your warren. One of the local rabbits had found her that morning to tell her his whole family was plagued by the things, and already the kittens were falling sick. Daine sent a silent curse to the people who had destroyed her workshop, because she had to tell the rabbit to come back tomorrow. By then, who knew how many of the young could have died?

"The person I'm trying to trap won't act too soon." He explained why it would be over soon as vaguely as he could. "They're trying to be clever."

"A lot of people around here are trying that." She replied shortly, still irked that he hadn't told her the plan. She started collecting ingredients for her next potion. "Where did we put the filters?"

"I give them another month, at most." Numair continued, unperturbed. "We can get out of here before the rains start."

"Filters?"

"They're underneath the drawer where you hid your pregnancy charm." He said, turning over a page. Daine's fingers stopped an inch from the cabinet, and she looked around to see him watching her with dark, sharp eyes. She pulled her hand back guiltily, aware that she had convicted herself in that unconscious movement.

"I have another one." She tried to stop her voice sounding defensive, but of course it came out in an annoyed mutter. He turned a page, still not looking up and still speaking in the pleasant, absentminded way that made her stomach crawl.

"Of course you do. You're no more likely to break your charm and not replace it, than I am to take advantage of the fact that it's gone." He turned another page. "When did you find out it was broken?"

"Um, when we got back to Corus the first time." She admitted. "Duke Baird said it had never worked. He told me I wasn't pregnant, and gave me a new one. It was ages ago."

"And did you think I should know about any of that?" He asked, less mildly now. Daine's temper flared at that tone of voice, and she turned around angrily to wrench the drawer open and take out the filters.

"You would have made a joke or… you weren't even there."

"I don't find this funny." He said shortly, and he put the book down with a thud. "You had no right to keep this a secret from me."

"Oh, and you're so blameless!" She snapped, whirling around so fast one of the empty flasks smashed to the floor. The sound only made her angrier. "Duke Baird knew it was broken just by looking at it. How did a high and mighty mage like you miss something so obvious?"

"I'm not a healer, Daine."

"Then what _are_ you? What could you possibly had done apart from made everything more serious and frightening? I found out, I dealt with it, and if you hadn't found that stupid broken charm you wouldn't even know about it."

"Because you didn't tell me!" He snapped. "Can't you see how stupid… if something really had happened, then…"

"It didn't!" She almost stamped her foot on the floor, but remembered the broken glass. "Even if it had, I wouldn't have…" She bit her tongue so sharply that it bled, seeing his face turn from angry to thunderous. She faced him down for a moment, and then took a deep, shaking breath.

"You're being unfair. Can you imagine how scared I was?" She asked, forcing him to meet her eyes. "You've picked apart every little thing I did apart from how it felt, and if I have no right to keep a secret then you have even less… no right at all… to yell at me for something you can't even begin to understand."

"I understand."

"You do?" She scoffed and turned away, measuring salts into a scale with some vehemence. "You don't know anything about anything. If you did you wouldn't be calling me stupid."

"Just because you're a woman doesn't mean you suddenly possess the insights of Mother Flame." He said with barbed patience. The woman laughed and shook her head.

"Of course not. But you might think that maybe my ma was a midwife, and maybe I grew up seeing other women crying over their bad choices. Or maybe you should be thinking that before we even started all this, I told you I wasn't ready to have children, and you'd better believe I've thought over that just as much as you have. Just because your answer was yes doesn't mean you'd thought about it any more than my no. Or maybe you should stop making up stories and just look at the world in front of your nose, Numair. I made a mistake. A stupid, idiot mistake."

Daine told him about the healer who had sold her the charm. Numair listened in silence, his hands closing into fists as he heard about the man's trick, and when she finished speaking he looked out of the window as if he was planning on tracking the man down and shaking him until his teeth rattled. Daine winced and closed the shutters.

"I was very stupid, Numair. And I'm ashamed of it. Admitting that was so much worse than keeping the truth from you that I couldn't bear to say a word. I made Baird promise not to tell you. I was going to throw the old charm into the privy, but when I picked it up I just felt like all of my mistakes were in it, and I had to keep them close or else I'd make them again."

He looked at her for a moment, and then looked away. "Daine, I have to know. You just said…" He took a shallow breath and burst out, "What if you had been pregnant?"

"I don't know." She admitted honestly, and dug a splinter out of the window sill. "I don't ever want to find out what… what that choice feels like."

"How can you not know?" He asked, looking incredulous. "If you knew you were going to have a baby, wouldn't you…?"

"We're not talking about having babies." She snapped, interrupting him. "If it even came close to that I would ask you, but while it's my body and my mistake I won't apologise to you for fixing it without begging your sweet permission. Just because you sleep with me doesn't mean you can make that choice for me. Duke Baird told me if I couldn't talk to you about this then I shouldn't be doing it, but I already knew all the right words. My mother carried a bastard in her belly, too."

He flinched and shook his head. "That's not the same."

"What else would it have been?" She thudded back to the workbench and glared around at him. "I bet if you had this argument with any of your other women one of you would be thinking that word. It's not any different because it happened to me and not them. A child wouldn't care whether its parents were wrapped around each others bodies or each others hearts."

"I don't think about you like… them."

"No. That's the whole problem. In your dolt world we're married, aren't we?" She scowled when he flushed and looked away. "Hag's teeth, Numair. No wonder there are still rumours about us. You really can't see that in the real world I'm just one of your mistresses, can you?"

"I'm well aware of that fact. I assumed you were fine with it, since you're the one who's stopping us from getting married." He snapped. Daine smiled thinly and measured out a few drops of oil into a mixing beaker. She felt as if a glass wall was holding her in place, keeping her screaming mind away from her body as it icily responded:

"I guess I would rather chose to be your whore than give anyone the right to take my choices away."

"Gods!" The man stood up so quickly his book went flying, and Daine flinched away from it. For a moment she wondered if he was going to walk towards her. She knew he would never hurt her, but even the thought of being an inch closer to him made her feel sick, as if his anger would burn her. He didn't move forwards, though, only spun on his heel and strode out of the room, slamming the door behind him. A chorus of complaints screeched out from the animals in the room.

Daine blew out the flame under her tripod and rested her aching head in her hand. The words had poured out of her without thought, words which she had had writhing in her head ever since Baird had shown her the broken charm. It had been so long since then that she had thought the danger of Numair finding out had passed. She should have known he would find a way to trap her into admitting the whole mess.

…And she knew she was wrong, and he was right, and she should have told him to start with. Why couldn't he have just asked her, rather than being so… so…?

"We'll have a wonderful fight later." She muttered to herself as she wound her way down the stone steps. "Huzzah."


	42. Clouded

Daine spent the next few hours mixing more potions and sweeping up the shards of glass. Once she had swept one clean patch she decided to attack the rest of the room - some of which they had barely glanced at since they had moved. As she cleaned and worked on her potions she thought over what had happened. She didn't regret anything that she had said, but now that her mind was clearer she wished that she had said some of it in different ways.

Numair wanted children. He had told her that almost from the start, and when they were making plans for their future he always seemed to find a way to include it. It was so natural and absentminded on his part that Daine had stopped objecting to it; his imaginary children were real, simply waiting for a time when she was ready to bring them into the real world. It made Daine shiver to think that Numair saw her in that way, like some kind of vessel. Sometimes when he started talking about their life together she could see it in his eyes, an emptiness which it was somehow her task to fill. She would change the subject before he even got the first word out. It wasn't that she didn't see the same future shadows that he did, only that they were further away, strangers who she wanted to meet when she was older, but not now, not before she was ready.

Numair said he would wait, but even that made her feel uneasy. What if he waited and then one day she decided she didn't want children after all? Or worse – what if she found out that she couldn't? Would their lovemaking become a chore, a grim attempt to do nothing more than sow seed?

Daine trickled a spoonful of arsenic powder into one of the decanters and scowled. Whether she could have children or not wasn't the point. Numair said he was hurt because she had lied, but all she could see was how much angrier he had gotten once she had been honest.

Would he rather she had lied? She didn't want children now. She knew she wasn't ready. She would have ended it without thinking if Baird had said a few different words. It made perfect sense to her, but now she knew that Numair saw it differently. He wanted children, and she had as good as told him that if she found out she was carrying his child, she would end it. He didn't see the difference between a born child and the thin whispering of conception.

What would she truly have done?

Sarra had taught her how to end a pregnancy. She had been mixing herbs in a kettle, and Daine had tried to stick her chubby finger in to taste the brew. The midwife knocked her hand away and explained that the potion was for a woman in the next village who already had more children than she could feed. Daine must be very secretive, and not tell anyone what was in the tea.

"Life is precious." She had said, glancing out into the forest as she often did. "The gods bless us with it, but the lives of the living hold as much value as the lives of the unborn. I do not think Ellenne could survive another birth, whatever her fool husband thinks."

The woman came to the house later that evening, and drank the potion with gratitude in her eyes and tears on her cheeks. Afterwards, when they were stripping the stained blankets from the bed, Daine asked her mother if the woman had been happy or sad.

"Sad." Sarra said. "But tonight she will light incense and thank the gods for answering her prayers."

"The gods didn't do anything. You did."

Sarra leaned over and kissed the girl's hair. "That's how the gods work, dear heart."

Over the years, the girl watched her mother make potions for many other women, for many other reasons. Some of them wept, some of them begged, and one or two were so brazen that Daine followed them to see whether they would just dash the potion into the trees. One of those women stopped in a clearing once she was out of sight of the hut, and sat down against the tall roots of the trees before she downed the liquid. Her skin was as white as chalk beneath her bold makeup, and now that no-one could see her tears were pouring down her cheeks. She held her belly and whispered "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," into the wind until Daine couldn't bear any more, and fled back to her home.

The worst one was a girl who was brought in by her mother. The girl didn't seem to blink, she was so still. She stared straight ahead and moved so slowly it was as if she was under water. Sarra fed her the potion with a spoon, and spoke to her gently, and told Daine to wait upstairs. The little girl looked back and saw, for a brief moment, the bruises on the girl's wrists and the violent scratches on her neck. Her unblinking eyes stared at a horror that still refused to end, and her hands opened and closed continuously against some invisible attacker.

Sarra had never spoken about these women to her daughter, but she knew that Daine saw more than she was supposed to. The next day she took her aside and began to teach her potion craft. First, herbs that could heal, then the ones that could help, and finally… the ones that could kill. It was a messy, brutal task which the child never dared to learn properly, fearing the odd darkness in the stricken women's eyes. Sarra respected her horror, and let her keep her distance even when she was old enough to work. She had learned the value of life well enough to agree to end it, she said. Her daughter had no such obligation to the gods.

There was no way the men in the village didn't know what was going on, but no-one ever said a word. Daine had never considered what they thought about the whole thing. To her, the women had a kind of mutual understanding which no men had ever intruded into. No husbands ever accompanied their wives, even when the women swore their partners had agreed to it.

How many of them had fought over it? And how many had lost those fights, and drunk the potions anyway? She had seen defiance on so many faces, and fear. They staggered home while the potion was still taking hold, and bled their sorrows out in their own beds rather than risking being caught in the midwife's house. Some of them died, some of them lived. Sarra gave them all the potion with the same empty eyes and the blank, reassuring smile which made Daine shiver.

She wasn't quite sure how she would explain any of this to Numair, though. Describing her abortionist mother wasn't really going to make him feel any better about his own imaginary children, was it?

"The dead and the unborn all go to the dark god's realms. _"_ The green lady had told her, holding her daughter close and wishing she could explain all of her divine understanding in the few short hours before Daine started her trek across the divine realms. "They are beloved."

"Who by, mama?"

"By the love which holds us all. _"_ The goddess had looked at the sky, and for a moment her blue eyes were like gemstones. Then she had shaken away the resonant power, and looked around at the young woman who stared at her with open confusion.

"When you feel love, you only have to reach out your hand to feel how much it surrounds you." The woman said.

Daine lowered her eyes and stopped asking questions. Her life had given her so much loneliness that Sarra could tell she did not believe in that kind of love. She had never felt it, not since she was a child who took a mother's love for granted. The goddess grieved for her, but she refused to use her power to intervene. She could have petitioned any of the higher gods to help her daughter find happiness, but she had watched her at the Beltane fires and knew her daughter's stubborn mind would rebel at even the hint of coercion.

The gods' daughter had never quite understood the pairing of her parent's souls, and so she treated one as her stolid, earthly mother and the other as a rather intimidating immortal or a grand mage. She had fallen into her father's hands at the moment of her conception, and yet she had felt none of his patronage. She did not feel his hands guiding her own onto the bow, nor did she credit him with her uncanny skills of woodcraft and tracking. She had always resented the traveller who had coerced his mother into his arms, and had been so convinced of his abandonment that she was blind to his shadow.

Sarra watched her child grow into an outcast without being able to protect her. The villagers had found other things to thank for their bountiful harvests, and their fattened children grew as petty and forgetful as the parents who spurned the midwife's bastard get. Some years had passed when they hadn't even bothered to light the solstice fires.

When Sarra crept away to the lakeside she saw the amusement on her lover's face, but she herself could feel only anger. He had proven himself right, and for most of the festival he could hunt and goad the prey as much as he liked. Other villages were not so complacent, though, and when Daine was weaned and Sarra's softness returned to beauty, she dared to ask the god who else had summoned him while she was heavy with young. He answered her honestly, and she wept so much that his face was creased with confusion even as he comforted her.

"Why would I take another woman?" He asked. "You are the only one who calls to me."

He took her hand and bore her to the fires a mountain away. There, he drew her into the centre of the raging fire. The flames licked over her skin as painlessly as warm water, and he smiled at the wonder in her fearless eyes. The ash clung to them as they stepped through the fire into the night, and lay down in the dew of the long grass. That night he named her the first of her secret names, his own image of her, the walker of ashes. It was the first of many names, and when Weiryn petitioned the higher gods for her immortality he spoke them all. _Speaker of honey. Mother of outcasts. Healer of the lost. Shepherd of the unborn._ But whenever they were making love he always whispered her true name, and she his, and they both called each other beloved.

They did not conceive another child. Their first had nearly killed Sarra, and Weiryn could not bear to cause her any more pain. He could not love the infant as he ought because of this, and when Sarra offered to bring Veralidaine to the lakeside he refused. It was one matter where the mortal could not turn his stubborn heart, no matter which sharp words or loving pleas she used. Instead of entreating her partner, Sarra started telling him stories. Lying sated in the mortal's arms, Weiryn would listen to the soft burr of her voice, the mother of his outcast, and if his heart warmed then he grunted and feigned disinterest.

He realised how much he looked forward to the stories only after many months, and regretted his mistaken pride. When he finally changed his mind the girl looked at him with blinded eyes. She had none of her mother's perceptiveness, then… but there was more of himself in her infant face than he had expected. Ever year after that day, he spent a part of each solstice with her – as a breath of wind masking her scent, or a frightened deer scaring the herd into a faster pace to inspire her to aim more cleanly – but never as a father.

If Sarra knew what he was doing (and doubtless she had worked it out), then she said nothing. Her bitter words turned into close embraces, and her kisses were sweeter than honey. He tasted the love of mothers on her lips, and adored her with all his heart.

When Daine took her chance to creep into the Beltaine rites in Tortall, her father found himself summoned to her side. He barely recognised the young woman at first, so far from her own country and so beset by dark-haired strangers. She had marked her cheek with charcoal in a wobbly rune, but although the mark was smudged the sigil was oddly complex, protecting her from harm and hiding her from scrying eyes. Weiryn wondered where she had learned it, and then remembered the Badger making some taciturn comment about a mage. The god glared around the fire, but there were no auras as strong as his daughter's.

She looked up, and for the first time in her life she saw him. It was the night when gods could prowl the mortal realm on their own solid feet, and by then the girl trusted her own senses far more than she had as a heart-sore child. For a while she stared at him, chewing her lip and trying to make sense of the image before her. Then a hand fell heavily on her shoulder, and she turned to look into the eyes of a stranger who carried the goddess in his blood.

"You can't have her." Weiryn growled, forcing his will into the clearing where his daughter was letting the boy draw her closer in his arms. He drew the goddess out of the circle of firelight like a tic, feeling the dark swollen grotesquries of her gluttonous mind long before her body appeared. Ever since he had scorned her the creature had haunted his fires, resenting the power of a pairing which she had no part in. Her spite was written on her face and she looked swollen and waxen from her feast of crude, rutting flesh.

"Your brat is in my domain." She purred in catlike smugness. "Why shouldn't I choose her?"

She swept towards the fire like smoke and wrapped her arms around the girl's chest, drawing her close to her engorged body and whispering heatedly in the girl's ear. Daine reeled dizzily and her partner stepped forward to help her, but before he could take her hand she threw herself into his arms, laughing giddily as he grinned and spun her back into the circle. It was the playful dancing of the young, but the ancient eyes who watched them were filled with anything but innocence.

There was a burst of light from the fire and Sarra appeared in a blaze of anger, bursting out her own flares of silver power as she tore through the barrier. Her body was half unformed as she struggled to cross the realms. She still smelled of ash before she found her immortal shape, and her skin cracked and seared like burning timber. She seized the goddess with one strong hand and dragged her backwards towards the fire.

"You are in my domain, you bitch." She hissed. "I am born of fire. Let's see how well you burn."

Wanton twisted in her grip, her face scornful. "Idiot mortal. You can't kill a god."

"I don't want to kill you. I hear you're the goddess of the body. You must feel things very strongly." She yanked her a little closer, fury burning in her ravaged eyes. A god would not have normally dared to attack another god in this way. Even though the mortals could not see them the other gods were doubtless gathering with the Hag to place their bets.

Wanton whined and writhed away, the tendons in her neck forming bulging cords as she struggled. She raked her claw-like nails down the woman's face, and Sarra recoiled as blood streamed into her eyes. It dried and healed as rapidly as it had appeared, but the red bruises she had left on Wanton's arms refused to heal.

"It's not fair!" The bloated creature screamed, her red lips flecked with spittle. "She is in my domain, father!"

The sky did not answer, and Sarra smiled thinly. "I am the voice of mothers and the mother of the lost. She is my child and she _is_ my domain. Touch her again and I will use every scrap of my power to burn you into dust."

Wanton hissed like a snake and then twisted a final time and vanished into the smoke. Around the fire the mortals shook their heads as if they were giddy, then carried on their festivities with laughter and low voices. Daine and the boy had crept to the trees, their hands on each other as they were entwined in each others' embrace, but she pulled away in confusion the second the goddess fled. Her parents watched as she staggered awkwardly away, her hand pressed to her face in shame, her eyes wide with realisation as the boy reached for her.

"She'll summon her back." Weiryn said, watching the girl run away. "Mortals always do, in the end."

"I didn't." Sarra reminded him. The god looked archly at her.

"Wanton doesn't touch my prey."

"You won't touch it either if you talk to me like that, Weiryn."

He laughed and bent down to kiss her, taking his time and waiting for her to whimper and press herself closer before he pulled away. "Have you finished your duties, my lady?" He asked, because until then they were both bound to the mortal soil. Sarra nodded and reached for him again, and this time he picked her up and carried her to the fire.

"I have one more blessing to grant." He murmured, and stepped into the flames.

Wanton lurked sulkily by the trees, watching them jealously, and as her body starved in the winter and blossomed into virginial beauty in the spring she planned her revenge. Weiryn was right; all mortals turned to her sooner or later, and she couldn't simply sink into the girl with the same thoughtless abandon she normally delighted in. She watched her closely, trailing the stormwings and tasting the shreds of confused desire which the girl hid away. She left her in the dragon lands, and watched her divine trial as one of the hazy faces in the watching pantheon.

The girl chose to become mortal. Her eyes were soft but determined, and she looked at her mother when she spoke. Wanton licked her lips, feeling the chains which the other goddess had bound her with slipping away. In her heart she was crowing over the hunter god, mocking him for his daughter's mortal weakness.

She followed the girl back through the realms and was surprised to find out who the mortal man was, whose love had called the girl back to him. Numair had worshipped Wanton in his youth, giving her wild hedonism without shame or compunction. The goddess had thought he had died, because she had stopped hearing the blood rushing in his veins.

When her eyes lit on him she could not move closer. The man was rejecting her so fiercely that she could not move. She watched him in wonder, marvelling at the stubbornness which stopped him from obeying his base instincts. He wanted the mortal girl with aching longing, but he held himself back. Wanton would have suspected Weiryn of interfering, but the man's mulish denial was something else. It occurred to her that the mortal was watching the girl in exactly the same way that she was: waiting for her to take the first step. When he was with her, even when he started touching her, his reserve held the goddess away.

The girl wrote a letter to a queen. The goddess breathed in its trembling words like perfume. She had her. When the queen replied Wanton slipped into the paper, her musk rich and tempting, and as the girl read her friend's advice she blushed and her eyes skipped away from the words. Wanton slipped from the pages into her heated blood and clung to her jealously, murmuring in her ear as the girl walked through the village streets. _Think of him. Think of his hands, his lips, his skin. Think of it. Surrender yourself to me._

The mortal hesitated, biting her lip, and then walked to a healer's grubby shack. Wanton gripped her arms and legs and blew on them until the skin prickled in goose flesh. She whispered into the healer's mind, too, making him see the girl's ripening sexuality instead of her innocent fear and sending his hand to the flawed charms with a burst of grim pleasure. Then she purred into the girl's mind until the poor creature could barely concentrate, watched her take the charm with her eyes blinded, and then she left her reeling in the street.

The girl returned to the mage and drew her to him word by word, touch by touch. The goddess could not break his resolve, but the girl coaxed her way past it. Wanton tasted their happiness a little bitterly. She was too spiteful to bless them, however ardently they worshipped her now.

She span in their minds like a spindle, making every thought in their heads about each other until they could not leave her domain. Then she coiled the thread tightly around them, and watched their passion turn into arguments and pride. The hunting gods listened to Wanton's crowing furiously, but could not intrude.

Wanton watched them rut and argue, until finally she was sated. She forgot them in a thoughtless instant.

Daine swept the glass off the floor and wished she could talk to Numair as her friend instead of as her lover. If he wasn't so angry about the broken charm she could have reasoned with him. She slowed her angry breathing and imagined what would have happened if she had simply gone to him for advice. What would he have said, then?

She suddenly realised that he would probably have acted the same way. Only this version of Numair was not angry because of the charm, he was angry because she had unknowingly put herself at risk. He would ask if she was alright before he even thought about a solution. Daine also realised that if she had come to him for advice, he would have been furious at the man who had shared in her mistake. She shuddered to think of his anger. He had always protected her so fiercely, but there would be nothing he could do. Would he think of it as his failure, his mistake, rather than her own?

"What a besotted idiot." She muttered to her broom, and kept sweeping.


	43. Power Beneath

Daine was working by the stable when she heard the screams. Over the years she had learned the differences between screams like their own language. There were the screams of laughter and effort which the riders and the pages made in their drills; there were the harsh barks of hostlers whose feet had been in exactly the same place as a hoof for a painful moment; there were the thin whines of lords and ladies who thought mice running across their feet was a horrific ordeal. These screams were different - high, and full, and forged of so many notes that the girl knew their sound. It was a crowd, and they were terrified, and whatever had scared them was still going on.

She was running even before the servant found her, and his face was white with fear. "Mis…tress… Sa…!" He gasped, gulping in air between syllables. She skidded to a halt and seized his arm, forcing him to breath until he could force out the words: "The sirens caught someone! They dragged him into the moat! They…!"

Daine cursed and sped off, her heart sinking into her boots. It couldn't be true. There was no reason, and she had no warning that the creatures were unhappy, or scared. They had promised… they had sworn…

The crowd parted as she ran forwards, and she hurtled towards the water's edge under their angry, frightened eyes. Without stopping to catch her breath, she dove into the water and skimmed straight down to the bottom, not bothering to change her shape. The man was easy to find even in the murk; he thrashed about under the surface so much that the surface looked as if it was boiling. Blood flowed thinly from two long, shallow cuts on his chest, and he looked dazed. Daine had never seen someone so much in shock that they couldn't remember the way back to the surface. Sending her magic out in a wave, she pushed the immortals back and hauled the man back to dry land. He dragged limply against her, and she gritted her teeth. The man was either fainting or an imbecile, not even moving a foot to help push back against the cold water.

He gasped in a deep breath the second they broke the surface, and by the time Daine's own lungs were filled other hands had dragged him ashore. Her ears buzzed, and she hesitated before pulling herself on to dry land. It wasn't the resentful glares of the humans which stopped her, but the utter silence from the sirens. Something was very wrong here.

No-one helped her ashore. She raised herself to her feet and dripped onto the planks of the walkway.

"Arrest her!" Someone shouted, and another voice joined the growing fray: "She as good as mauled him herself!"

"Why didn't anyone else go in after him?" Daine demanded. A few people looked away, embarrassed, but just as many sneered at her. One of them stepped forward to wave a finger in her face.

"Why not jump in a shark infested bay while we're at it?"

"They don't… they shouldn't have…" She struggled for words and then stopped. It didn't matter what she said. There was no defence. The sirens shouldn't have attacked, but they had. Daine wrapped her arms around herself and looked back at the water, wishing they would at least say something. "I'll go back and ask them what happened."

A hand closed on her arm, and she looked up into the apologetic but implacable face of one of the castle guards. "You'd better stay put, miss."

"Can I talk to him? The man?" She persisted, looking around for him. "Surely he must have done something. At the very least he'll know something about why they attacked. If I knew that, I could…"

The guard shook his head, and she fell silent. At least while he kept her close she was under his protection. The crowd had the unpleasant look of a pack of hyenas circling a carcass.

"The sirens are venomous!" Daine invented desperately, tugging at the guard's arm. "Please, I need to see if he got bitten. If he did I need to let the healers know what the anti-venom is, and… and…"

It worked. The guard didn't look convinced, but some of the people around them muttered to each other and began clearing a path. The man sighed and escorted the wildmage through the gap.

"You're walking into the lions den, Miss." He whispered in her ear. "You still have a chance to stay clear."

"I like lions." She muttered, and then shot him a small smile. "Thank you for trying."

She pulled herself free of the crowd and fell into the clearing, where the man she had rescued was lying in the dirt. The cobbles of the courtyard were stained with his blood, but now that he was on dry land there was far less of it than Daine had expected. Under the water he had been fainting, numbed by pain and shock. Now that he was safe the wounds looked shallow. Daine swallowed back her sharp words and forced herself to take a breath. She told herself that she was used to seeing people injured, and she was used to being hurt. She knew far too well that a human body could suffer far more damage than that without needing to faint away. The civilians who had been safe behind stone walls for the war had no idea what their flesh could withstand. For all Daine knew, the man had felt his injuries as keenly as a mortal wound.

"What happened?" She asked, falling to her knees beside him. The man had looked well enough before, but as soon as she spoke he groaned and his eyes rolled back in his head. The girl suddenly knew that she was watching an act. His injuries were real enough, but he shouldn't be unconscious, and now that she looked at them the slashes looked nothing like the thin, looping gouge the sirens' fins had scarred into Numair's shoulder. She refused to believe that there wasn't some trick going on here. Her anger rose, and she risked prodding the groaning man. "Wake up! What did you do?"

Someone caught her shoulder, and she shook it away. Fury flared in her like a flame, and she started shaking the man, forcing him to open his lying eyes and look at her. "What did you do? Tell me what you did!" And then they were dragging her away, and their hands were digging into her skin, but even then she reached for the liar and screamed out again and again, "What did you do?!"

"The monsters have attacked us." Someone shouted over her, and the crowd roared with approval. Hands sank to knives and swords, and in a few heartbeats every man and woman was armed, glaring at the silent water. Mages stood with their hands outstretched, ready to boil the water at a single word from the nobleman who was still shouting at them. "Are we going to keep believing the lies of that little whore? Are we going to throw away the lives of our sons and the safety of our realm?"

By now the crowd was screaming. Daine gasped in a breath and clawed at the arms holding her, but they were digging into her so fiercely that even if she had shapeshifted, they would still have her trapped. She didn't dare risk growing, making herself strong and dangerous to break free. If she even looked like she was attacking the whole mob would turn on her. One of the men who was holding her drew her back against his chest, and she struggled desperately.

"Ssh!" He growled, and smothered her cries with one hand. It was the soldier who had caught her before. His hand smelled of sawdust and blood, and she saw that she had clawed long scratches along his wrist. She gagged and tried to wriggle free again, and he shook her. "Stop it, girl. Do you want to live through this mess, or not?"

The crowd seethed towards the water, and Daine watched desperately, unable to even scream out a warning to the cowering sirens. She hoped - wished, even - imagined the sudden wall of black flame which would block the crowd at the last moment, stopping them from taking another step. Numair always appeared when she truly needed him, she told herself. But as the crowd began jumping into the water with their weapons drawn, she sagged back against the soldier.

There was nothing she could do. All she could do was watch as the mob caught something which struggled and wriggled in terror as they dragged it on to dry land. They fell on it with swords and clubs, but there was no need. As soon as the warm sunlight hit it, the siren's beautiful silken tail shuddered and stiffened, growing dull and dark. Its eyes clouded, and the milky orbs boiled and dripped down into its gasping mouth. Then, silver blood seeping from its many wounds, it choked and lay still.

The crowd hushed for an instant, and then a great cheer rose up into the sky. Daine felt tears pouring down her cheeks. She wanted to close her eyes, but she couldn't look away. Emboldened now, more people leapt into the water and started hunting down the petrified immortals with whoops of sadistic joy.

"These are knife wounds." A soft voice said. The words were so clear that Daine thought she had imagined them, but then she saw the crowd turning around, just as confused as she was. She had no idea what they saw, but she recognised the educated tones of Duke Baird as his magically-amplified voice spoke again. "This man was injured by a mortal blade, not an immortal attack. Cease your assault, dear friends, and help me find the assailant."

There was a large amount of muttering at this as several people helpfully translated the longer words. For a few moments the crowd was torn, as the sodden people in the moat climbed out with wriggling trout and frogs in their arms, and the shouting subsided. Then, in a low wave, the anger returned. This time it was confused and accusatory. None of the good rioters appreciated being tricked.

"He was stabbed?" Someone demanded, and people pressed forward to peer at the victim. The soldier turned so that Daine could see, and she saw that the fainting man's cheeks had turned pale with fear, not with pain. He refused to open his eyes, but the healer's hands moved over his wounds with expert indifference.

"Not stabbed. It's barely even a flesh wound, just a few scratches in places that like to bleed." He shrugged and pressed his palm to the man's forehead. "Come now, sir. It's one thing to be ashamed of falling into a pond, but quite another to play dead over a few drops of blood."

The man pressed his eyes closer together and turned his face away.

"Whoever it was, he doesn't want to admit it." Someone called out.

"His wife!" Someone else replied, and there was a ripple of laughter. Other people had more serious expressions, and Daine could see them slowly gathering behind the man who had been rousing the crowd. She tensed, but then saw that they were looking at the nobleman with open anger. They knew he had tricked them. They weren't going to help him make things worse again. She sighed.

"Aren't you going to heal him, then?" Another man suggested. Duke Baird stood up, dusted off his hands, and treated the crowd to the iciest look his eyes could summon. It was chilling.

"I'm not going to erase evidence, my lords. The king will want to know why his treaty with the immortals was broken… and who to blame."

The effect on the crowd was immediate. They recoiled, as if stung. Those at the back started to drift away, trying to look inconspicuous as they wiped silver blood from their hands. In the moat, a man clumsily hauled himself up the far bank and crawled into the shelter of a nearby bush. It was pathetically laughable, or it would have been if not for the broken, silver body lying on the ground. Before long the crowd was half its size, and the remaining men and women didn't look as if they were going to laugh it off, either. Daine took the breathless, silent moment to slip free of the guard and sprint to the lake. The man caught her and grabbed her arm before she could jump in, but she managed to stretch her fingertips into the water. As soon as she touched their world, the sirens wailed in her mind. She bit back tears and listened for as long as she could bear it, and then broke the contact.

"I'm sorry." She whispered, and wiped her eyes angrily with her shaking hand. The guard cleared his throat, and she looked around at him. "They won't tell me what happened. They can't think about it right now. They're so scared and so… so sad…"

"It's alright." A bystander said awkwardly, and then caught her arm to help her stand up. As soon as she was upright he stood back, and his every movement was heavy with guilt. "We all know they didn't attack. They didn't even defend themselves."

She scoffed and looked down at the mud, where it shone with grossly iridescent silver streaks. The man started to say something else, and then he struggled and turned away. Daine looked back at the moat, wondering how she could comfort the poor creatures. There was no anger or malice in their pain, simply outright sorrow. Even when they had attacked the villagers they had never truly intended to cause pain; hurting Daine and Numair had been an accident in their rush to be understood, and they had agreed to the treaty with innocent delight. They didn't seem to understand why other immortals enjoyed pain. To them, it simply brought fear. They hated to be frightened, so they couldn't justify inflicting it on anyone else.

She had promised to protect them. Daine smelled the tang of blood in the air and felt sick.

The hurt man was being escorted away, as was the nobleman who was protesting at the top of his voice. The crowd followed them, their eyes fierce with suspicion.

"The guards keep a supply of truth dust in their tower." The soldier beside her said, his voice oddly satisfied. "My lord the duke decided to have a little chat with his patient. Of course, we always have a few of the knights loitering around, just itching to uproot conspiracies. Do you want to go and watch?"

Daine shivered and shook her head. She had no taste for the baying of hounds. "What are you going to do with me?"

He looked surprised, and then laughed and released her arm. "Did you think you were under arrest? I was told you were smarter than that."

"Smarter…?" She stopped and worked it out, pressing her hand to her forehead. "Oh gods, how long have you been following me?"

"I wouldn't dare, miss. But I may have been keeping an eye on you, from time to time."

"I hope Numair paid you well." Daine smiled a little and held out her hand, her smile widening when he shook it. "This was all part of his trap, wasn't it?"

"If there was a trap, it would be highly suspicious if a high mage got involved. Even if they saw him near the moat they would be accusing him of coercion, or mind reading, or whatever else might make them look innocent. So my answer is no, miss. I'm following you around because I like looking at fluffy kittens and pretty ponies. Your pompous, under-tipping friend has nothing to do with it."

Daine laughed. "I'm sure he'll give you a reward after this. Thank you." She sobered and looked down at the broken body, which the mob had forgotten. "Poor thing. I should give it back to the water, really, but I'm fair sure someone will want to use it as evidence."

The soldier helped her to find a flat wooden board, and they lifted the dead siren onto it as respectfully as they could. They draped a horse blanket over the huddled corpse, and set the board onto the wall beside one of the traveller's shrines. It was a small statue which people touched their fingers to when they left the safety of the bailey; over the years the god's features had worn smooth, and now nobody could remember if it was Mithros, the Mother, or even the wily Kyprioth. Daine sent a prayer to whoever was listening, hoping that they would be able to ease the sirens' sorrow even though it was too late for this one.

 _Comfort your own heart._ A voice whispered in her mind. Daine gasped and pressed her fingertips to her heart as it raced. She bit her lip as the divine voice breathed out, _Do not feel guilty. This path has ended so that a new one may begin. This road you have paved for the innocents will last, little cousin._

Daine closed her eyes and forced herself to breathe evenly, feeling the harrowing voice trickle from her ears. In its absence the silence was painful, and she suddenly understood the divinity the gods had granted the sirens. In their weakness, their fear, their ignorance, they had given them the shining gift of song. The power of the gods rang in their voices, and through them the voices of the divine realms sang on earth.

"We find beauty when we look for it." Daine whispered, remembering the music which had silenced the warring court. Their ears had bled, and as she touched the shrine a wry smile twisted her lips. "May we never forget the strength it hides."


	44. Spices and Darkness

Daine waited patiently beside the ornate doors of the king's reception room. Usually she would be summoned here, and so waiting in line with the other petitioners was a new experience. She could have simply knocked on the door of Jon's private suite, as she had done many times before, but she felt like she needed the formal setting. It had taken days for the uproar to die down, and by the time she could walk through the palace without whispers haunting her every step, she had spent more time giving formal statements than she ever had before in her life.

As soon as the nobleman had betrayed himself, the investigation had begun. It needed to be quick and thorough; the longer they waited, the more the other nobles might accuse the crown of targeting a rich lord and not an individual man who had been trying to undermine the king. The evidence was damning, though: the injured man had found that a night in the dungeon made him quite talkative, and he explained that he had been paid to jump into the moat. Once in the water, he had used a concealed blade to slit his skin open, and then started to make his way to the surface. Just as he was close, a fog of magic had blurred his eyes and made the world spin, until he had no idea which way he should swim to find air. Panicking, drowning, he had almost sunk into unconsciousness by the time the wildmage had pulled him to safety. He told the soldiers that it was fear which had made him refuse to answer their questions; he had no idea which of the men had sent such a spiteful spell after him. When he was locked away from them he was furious at the ease with which they had thrown his life away, and was more than willing to point fingers.

The nobleman's household servants were brought before the guards and some of the castle mages, who watched for the tell tale spark of the gift. Among them was a man who Numair had recognised - the same man whose drifting shadow had prowled the ruins of his old rooms. He set his jaw and didn't react, but after the men were sent away he quietly told the investigating chief what the man had done. He struggled to find any way to prove it, and the investigator was just about to shrug off this new accusation when Numair remembered something. Daine's animals had attacked the invaders. Even with a healing, they would still have scars shining on their ankles. Sure enough, when the man was summoned back, his leg was mottled with white twisting lines in the shape of claws and teeth.

That implicated the servants; but what of the nobleman? Short of rousing the crowd, he looked quite innocent until the investigation looked towards his accounts. A sum of money had been withdrawn from his estate - an amount very close to the sum named by the captured assassin, and spent on the very same day.

All together, the case was wrapped up very tidily before the month was over. Just like that, the sirens were vindicated - and their probation was over. While Jonathan continued to navigate the shifting tides of the nobles and their petty squabbling, Daine spent her time speaking to the immortals. Despite what had happened, they had decided to stay in the castle and honour their side of the agreement. They could tell the difference between the acts of one frightened man and the request of a people, since their own world was so utterly wrapped up in their shared community and not the individual creatures within it. Their empathy surprised Daine, who had thought that the immortals were tribal by necessity, not instinct. The siren's unquestioning loyalty to one another was humbling - as was their open forgiveness of the human tribe's "mistakes". After all, they said, they had made a mistake too, and humans had died from it. It was only right that the balance should be restored.

Daine left them feeling a little numb. She would have felt better if they had screamed and blamed her for their friend's death. Their easy acceptance seemed almost idiotic to her, and she had to bite back her words more than once. It was unlike her to be so impatient with the people, but the sirens put her teeth on edge. When she was near them, her magic felt dampened. When she could hear them, her common sense seemed meaningless. The last time she spoke to them, she left the moat with a huge amount of relief. Now that she no longer had to protect them, she was happy to let them sing to the empty sky.

It also meant that she was free to leave Corus. Numair had been right, although he stopped himself from crowing too loudly about it. They had only had to stay for a few months. Once the students were settled into their routines they began to plan the rest of their year, deciding to stay in the tower during the winter months. The snows, they agreed, would give them the kind of solitude and peace that they needed to pause for a while, to look at their lives without all of the chaos and conspiracies which had followed them into autumn.

First, though, they needed to tie up the loose ends in Corus. Daine waited in the reception room patiently, listening to the birds chatting outside the window about a new page they were stealing crumbs from. The days were turning cold, and she was glad that they were well fed.

Jon looked up in surprise when the herald called her through the doors, and he looked at her smart clothes with a frown. "Daine?"

"I'm here as a subject." She said quietly. "I came to petition the king."

He smiled a little and waved her to a chair. "Please. I am happy to hear your request."

"But will you treat it as… as carefully and cautiously as any other subject's?" She asked. "I want to do what's right, not just what I feel is right. So I want you to pretend you're not my friend, and think about me like a mage, or a soldier, or however you describe me in your council meetings."

"Deal." He shrugged and straightened his crown with his expression suddenly becoming more businesslike. "What do you want, Mistress Sarrasri?"

She hesitated, and when she spoke the words came out far too quietly. "Numair has asked me to marry him."

Jon resisted the urge to grin, or to leap to his feet, or to cheer. He waited for her to carry on, and she added quickly, "I'm not saying yes. I don't want it. But I'm fair sure that… the way things are between us is going to stay. So I guess I'm saying that… that whether or not I say yes doesn't matter, what's more important is that… that it's going to be my life now."

He raised an eyebrow, and she stopped and sighed, tugging at her nose as she thought of some way around her rambling words. The gesture was one she had learned from Numair, the king knew. It didn't look odd to see the girl mimicking it. She must have been doing it for years.

"I know about my dowry." She said finally. "I want to know what you're doing with it."

Jonathan smiled. "It's your money, Daine. Your friends all wanted you to have it."

"Yes, but is it really mine?" She persisted. "They wanted me to find a husband with it. I'm not giving it to Numair, he'll just buy silly clothes and books."

"I would advise against it." The king agreed acerbically. "Not least, Daine, because he'd never accept it. He'd tell you exactly what I'm telling you now: that the money belongs to you, and no-one else has any say in what happens to it."

"He did say that." She replied with a small smile. "We argued about it this morning."

"Why, what did you want to do with it?"

"Get rid of it." She sighed and looked away, waving a hand vaguely, "That's why we were arguing."

It hadn't been a bad argument, but one of the stubborn ones where between long hours of perfectly pleasant behaviour, one of them would snipe a single sentence and the other one would pretend that they hadn't heard it. They were used to that kind of argument; they both knew each other's stubborn minds far too well, and knew that once they had their minds fixed on something they would be impossible to change. But they were also both too proud to leave a battle half-fought, and so even knowing that the other person wasn't listening, they both tried to get the last word in. Numair had a particular talent for muttering long words in his sleep, so that by the time his sleepy friend had decifered the insult he had already sunk back into unconsciousness. Daine encouraged the birds to shriek their morning chorus as loudly as they could every morning after he did that, sleeping soundly beside him with her ears shapeshifted into small curves which barely heard a peep. She usually woke up when he pulled the blanket off her or threw a pillow, and after one thing lead to another they usually forgave each other by breakfast time.

"I want to use the money for something." She told Jon, scratching her head awkwardly. "It's not needful, and I won't get an inve… investmu… I won't make money back from it, but I think it's the right thing to do."

"What is it?"

"I want to rebuild the farms outside our home. Near the tower. The village we live in and the one where the sirens came from - there are a few others, besides. The tithing lord should be looking after them, and I'm sure he will, but…"

"But it's getting cold, and he has to look to his townsfolk before the villages." Jon finished, looking pensive. "It's the same all over the kingdom."

"I know. And I know the crown can't do everything, and that there are hundreds of villages in the same poor way, but if I have money just gathering dust I'd far rather use it to feed them this winter, than hoard it to buy a few pretty dresses in the spring."

Jon was silent for a long time, and when he spoke it was in a careful voice. "The tithing lord of your county was killed last year. His son is barely eleven years old, and I'm sure he would appreciate any help anyone could offer."

Daine relaxed. "Then…"

"But!" Jonathan held his hand up with a warning look. "His advisors might suspect that you're planning to take the villages for yourself, set yourself up a holding while he's still finding his feet."

"Well, that's just silly." The girl shrugged. "Tell him it's not true."

"Oh come on, Daine. Hasn't this summer taught you enough about rumours?"

She reddened and shook her head. "I only want to help."

Jonathan looked at her levelly and then steepled his fingers in front of his face. "Your Jolyon sends his tithes to the boy; his village has done impressively well in the past few months. I might send a courier to the lad suggesting he pays his next tithe in person. The boy can vouch for you, and in the meantime you can leave your money with me. It might just happen that in the next few weeks a lot of travellers will pass through your villages - men who will thresh corn or repair a roof in exchange for a night's sleep."

Daine understood, and a relieved smile crossed her face. "Won't people get suspicious?"

The king sighed and shrugged. "You're fairly notorious, Daine. People are always going to be suspicious. As clever as he is, it took your idiot teacher far too long to work out that the best thing he could do was keep as far away from the rumours as possible. I promise you the money will be well spent, and your villages will be fine - but you'd do well to pretend you know nothing about it."

The girl thought this over and then smiled ruefully. "How many people have to hide from their own work?"

"You'd be surprised." The man said in his driest tone, and then he stood up and smiled. "Well, shall we shake hands on it?"

After they had agreed Jon became very businesslike, calling a clerk into the audience chamber and explaining the plan to him. The man nodded and glanced at Daine, but he neither looked impressed nor interested. It was as Jon had said - such conspiracies were so par for the course that the royal staff were more than used to their king's sly ways of doing things. Although he already knew all of the answers, Jon kept asking Daine questions and pressing her for details. She was almost irritated by it, until she realised what he was doing. He was showing her that everything she wanted was to be done, and letting her see how his plan would actually work. It was a little odd to think that she would never actually see any of the work happening, nor speak to anyone who knew about it, after this meeting. When she finally finished and the pages bowed her out, she felt as if she had cut a string which tied her to a gift that she had gladly given away. She had never seen the money, so in her mind it hadn't truly existed. Now, it would become real - in bread, and bricks, and solid things that would make a real difference.

She walked home the long way, taking a detour through the courtyards until she reached her old rooms. It had been months since she had been there, she realised, and walking down the familiar corridors made her feel a little giddy. It was as if her feet were too large for the stones, or perhaps that the ceiling seemed further away. Nothing seemed to truly fit. She hesitated at her door and looked at the name plate. It was a name she didn't recognise - and under the rough-edged letters, the words _Apprentice Farrier._ She ran her fingers over the letters in something of a daze. Of course they needed to use the room. People were pouring into the palace every day. But it was jarring to see it carved into the wall, as if she had never even existed.

"Can I help you?" A voice piped up. She started and looked into the bright blue eyes of a young woman who had pushed open the door. No - not even a woman. The girl couldn't have been more than thirteen. She was the same height as Daine, though, and looked at her nervously.

"I'm sorry," Daine said, and smiled wanly. "I used to live here. I just wanted to see."

"Oh-h-h." The girl tipped her head to one side and risked her own smile. It wasn't quite sincere. "Do you know why the floor is blue, then?"

"Blue?" Daine echoed stupidly, and then had to bite back the urge to laugh. "I make potions. Some of them got spilled. Did they stain the floor?"

The girl nodded and pushed the door open a little wider. "Come and see!"

"No," Daine didn't know why she said it until the word had come out, and then she cleared her throat and shook her head. "No, thank you. It's your room now. I don't… I guess I was just feeling sentimental or… or something."

The farrier folded her arms and leaned against the door frame. Her bright eyes were curious, even if her body language was unimpressed. "It's just a room. They say I can't even paint the walls. They're so boring."

"I used to pin up pictures and maps."

"Maps are boring, too." The girl sniffed, and changed the subject. "What were you making potions for? I'm not allowed to even buy a rune from the market. They say it'll make me lazy, as if silly magic helps people cut corners when they're grinding down horseshoes." She snorted and shook her head, then looked up again with a snide grin. "I guess when you ran out your 'prenticeship they let you do whatever you wanted."

"I'm not a farrier. I'm a mage."

"Don't be stupid. Mages live in the east corridor. They're too fancy to grub around in our corridors with the barnyard cats. Gods help them if they catch a sniffle."

"I never lived like a mage." She shrugged, trying not to laugh at the rather accurate description of the rich apprentices who studied the gift in the east wing. "I guess it didn't hurt me any. I got homesick for this place, after all."

"It's just a room." The farrier repeated, and looked behind her dismissively. "A boring room."

"You'll miss it when you leave." Daine promised, and grinned when the girl pulled a face. When she was leaving the girl shut the door, and the old wooden latch stuck on the swollen frame. Without a word, the farrier yanked the door open again and slammed it shut.

 _I did that for five years._ Daine thought, listening to the sound. It was more strange to think that she would never do it again, than it was to see someone else in her room. She hadn't even asked the girl's name, she realised. She had read it on the door sign, but hadn't taken it in. It was better not to know, she thought. She would probably meet the girl eventually, when her master sent her to train on the yearlings when the riders wintered in the castle. They probably wouldn't even recognise each other.

She walked home slowly, shaking off her pensive mood, and by the time she reached the grand staircase she was almost cheerful. The light was coloured by the glass windows, and the early winter sun was bright enough to illuminate the frescos painted on the walls. The steps shone; the marble was cleaned each morning. It was truly beautiful, and a whole world away from the narrow corridor and sticking door she had walked away from. Still, she felt too small. The ornate room dwarfed her, a small dark figure who kept beside the rail and wouldn't dream of sweeping up the center of the staircase like a grand lady. If she had spent half of her dowry one one dress, on jewels and perfumes, and on a maid to dress her, then maybe she would have found the nerve. Daine wondered how much she would have to spend, to convince herself that she belonged in a place like this.

She walked along the balcony, and kept her eyes on the white marble. Her feet knew the way to the door; she had lived here for months, now, and she could count off the paces in her sleep. Was it home, then? They were going home soon, to the tower - and she was looking forward to it almost desperately - but it was just a place. It was like the farrier had told her: just a room. Her dowry had just been money, and her work had just been a disguise while they uncovered the traitors. She had snapped her tethers so well that she felt as if she could float away.

There was a mark on the gleaming tiles. Between two painted blue thistles, she saw the neat outline of a single paw print. Someone had stepped outside of the apartment and changed their mind.

Daine unlocked the door, pushed it closed behind her, and leaned back against it with her eyes closed. She heard the footsteps, and felt the hands on her shoulders, and when he pulled her close she drank in the spices and darkness which clung to his skin.

Had her choice been so difficult? The silence was too soft to break, and she heard herself breathing as if it was another person. Somehow he knew she was lost, even when she had no words for it, and so he held her in his arms and didn't say a word.

 _This is how my life is going to be._ She had said those words to Jon, and felt a thrill of certainty even as she spoke. It was the first time she had admitted it to anyone - even to herself. She had never even spoken to Numair about it. He stroked her hair, and Daine sighed and wrapped her arms around his back. This was where she made sense, she knew, and whatever room she was in, this was her home.

"I gave the money away." She said softly. Numair nodded and kissed her forehead, then she pulled away a little and looked into his eyes. "Now I can ask you to marry me."

He froze, and managed to somehow shake his head and shiver at the same time. "Don't tease me, Daine."

"I don't think I am." She smiled a little at the uncertainty in her own voice, and then reached up to stroke his hair back from his face. "I don't know if I'm ready to say the words, but I know that you're the other half of my soul. You asked me once what I think marriage is, and now I have an answer. It's not spending our years together; its being a part of each other's lives. We've both made a lot of mistakes, but I think we're there now."

He closed his eyes for a moment and she reached up to rest her forehead against his. "Don't cry. I love you."

"You're crying, too." He managed. Daine smiled shakily and wiped her eyes.

"I had to convince Jon that I was sure about this. About _us._ I can see all of our lives laid out so clearly that I couldn't begin to find the right words. It's not about belief or trust or even hope, it's just… it's just a _fact._ "

"That's your romantic streak coming through." He said, wiping his own eyes and smiling. She raised an eyebrow.

"If you hadn't made marriage out to be some kind of flowery fairy tale I might have listened months ago!"

"So you wanted me to talk about living arrangements and taxes and practical things?" He echoed her tone and laughed. "I never would have proposed to you like that. It's… uncouth."

"It's real."

"Are you implying that all the lovely things you just admitted were false?"

"Don't be a dolt." She scowled. "I didn't admit anything. You weren't listening right. If you actually believed what I say half the time you'd stop thinking I was in love with… with a bunch of silly words that don't mean anything."

"They mean something to me."

"Go and marry yourself, then!" She said archly. "Come back to me when you want to admit you're…"

He stopped her with a kiss, catching hold of her arms and holding her still until she sighed and twisted her fingers into his tunic. Pressing her back against the door, he lifted her up and kissed her again, not passionately but sweetly, stopping every angry word, taking his time and then pulling away with a question burning in his dark eyes.

"No." She whispered, and drew him back for another kiss. He smiled against her lips and returned it playfully, and this time when they parted he kept his arms around her body, holding her at eye level.

"Yes." He said, and kissed her cheek softly. "I'll marry you."

"When?" She asked, her voice a low whisper as if someone might overhear. He grinned and lowered his voice just as conspiratorially.

"Say 'I do'."

She looked confused, but then smiled and kissed the end of his nose. "I do?"

"There." He laughed and spun her around. She shrieked and laughed when he let her go, and tumbled to the floor in a fit of giggles.

"You're such an ass sometimes." She caught his hand and dragged him down with her. "I was asking seriously."

"In all seriousness, then…" He looked at her levelly, "This is between us, not anyone else. Do you think I care about a priest waving a sprig of evergreen over us, or people throwing rice at our feet? You're the only person who matters to me. If you want to take me as your husband, then I will gladly give you my heart until the day I die."

"I do want that." She whispered. "Do you want… will you accept me as your wife?"

"I do." He took her hand, and felt her shiver. The small motion made him smile, and he kissed her gently. "I don't think we can get more married than we already are."

"You're my husband, then." She said it slowly, as if tasting the words, and traced the shape of his face with her fingertips. "In this room, at least."

"When we're ready to be the center of gossip again we can inflict our wedded bliss on the whole world."

She laughed and shook her head. "I'm happy to say the words for you."

"I can wait." He smiled easily at her. "It'll take Thayet at least a year to choose you a white dress that you won't absolutely despise, and then they'd have to carve a new sign for our door. Besides, you'd be saying the words for us, not for me."

She paused, and then fiddled with her necklace for a moment. "Can I ask you a question as… as my husband, then?"

He grinned and couldn't resist kissing her before he nodded. Daine laughed and then chose her words carefully.

"While this is about you and me… then you're right. It's no-one else's business. The gods have already blessed us and we've made more heartfelt promises to each other than most any other person I know. Even if we grew old together without the words it would be as husband and wife, because it's a fact that that's who we are. Right?"

He nodded and waited for her to continue, taking her hand. Daine looked down at it and blushed, and the next words came out as a whisper.

"When this isn't about just you and me any more… then we'll say the words."

Numair blinked, and then understood. He reddened a little, and then his eyes widened when she reached up to her throat and, fingers trembling a little, unhooked the chain which held her pregnancy charm. Very carefully, she placed the charm into the center of his hand and closed his fingers over it.

"There." She said. "Now neither of us have to choose."

"Are you sure?" He asked, his voice barely above a whisper. She swallowed and then nodded, meeting his eyes. The stubborn light in them made her look almost hostile, but then she carefully knelt up and kissed him. It was a light, trembling kiss which would have fit perfectly on the lips of a bride making her vows, but when she drew away her eyes were alight with mischief.

"I hope you're determined to win this," She murmured. "You lost my last two games."

"I'm going to win this one." He promised, and ran his hand through her curls. The girl laughed and pushed him away mockingly.

"You won't win this one with promises and flowery words!" She drew him closer again and kissed him, making up for her trembling embrace with so much heat that they both gasped and dug their fingers into each other's backs. Then, with an effort, Daine dragged herself away and laughed. "Maybe I shouldn't wear you out."

"Maybe we shouldn't consummate our marriage lying on the floor." He returned acerbically. When she looked like she was going to make a biting reply, he picked her up and lifted her easily in his arms.

"Spoilsport." Daine muttered, undoing the buttons on his tunic. "You'll never win the game like that."

"Remember that your husband is a poetic fool, and that there's something romantic about actually making love in a bed."

"I remember him telling me that he was so desperate to lie with me that we wouldn't make it as far as the bed." She returned, and circled her fingertips lightly through his chest hair. He failed to hide a shiver, and she reached up to kiss him. "Be romantic next time, my love. I want my husband now."

"Your husband has developed monumental self control thanks to his stubborn little wife." He said implacably, carrying her into the bedroom. Daine moued in pretend disappointment, and as soon as he laid her down on the bed she looped her arms around his back and drew him down. The man laughed and played along, kissing her with such heat that she could barely breathe, but stubbornly refusing to let her coax him into doing more. When it was too much for either of them to bear, he rolled to one side and sat up. Daine sat up too, looping her arms around her knees.

"I'm starting to think you don't want to even play this game."

"You know me better than that." He smiled crookedly at her and caught his breath. Opening the bedside drawer, he started pulling out old quills and scraps of notes as he looked for something. Daine crawled up the bed to sit beside him, hiding a smile.

"I swear, if you pull out a poem…"

"I wouldn't dare." He mimed fear and then turned back to his hunt. Finally, right at the bottom of the drawer, he found something which made a soft clicking sound. A part of the cabinet slid away, and he slipped his fingers into the space to draw out a small velvet pouch. Daine whistled between her teeth and sat back on her heels.

"How do you always find the secret compartments so quickly?" She asked. "We've only had this furniture a few months."

"They hide the edges with spells." Numair said, and then smiled innocently. "They don't hide the spells."

"One day I'll work out how to talk to woodworm, and then we can steal the world." She said, with an arch grin. Numair laughed and opened the pouch, and then held out his hand. He held a silver ring with same ornate design as the bracelet he had given her.

"That one's not a prototype." Daine breathed, just for something to say. The mage shook his head and handed it to her. She shook her head. "You're supposed to put it on for me."

"I thought you weren't romantic."

"I wasn't planning on it, but you're fair persistent."

He smirked and caught her hand, slipping the ring onto her finger. It was too big, but then he whispered a word and the ring shimmered and grew thicker, until the inner edge embraced her finger perfectly. Daine caught her breath and then held her hand out, feeling as if the calloused palm and ornate jewel belonged to two different people.

"I think…" She said shakily, "If I made you one, it'd look fair clumsy next to your other baubles."

"Then I'd throw the baubles away." He took her hand kissed it, smiling when she laughed nervously at the courtly gesture. He let go and studied her hand as intently as she had, admitting, "It's a focus, too. I hope you don't mind, but I threw every protection spell I know at it. I know you too well to ask you to look after it, so instead I thought it'd need to look after you."

"I can look after myself."

"True, but if I know where you are I can help you hide the bodies."

"I like that." She grinned at him, and then more quietly repeated, "I really do like it. Without the magic it's just a piece of metal, but you've made it so all of your… your protectiveness and love for me… go with me wherever I am."

"I'd protect you myself, but you go to work ridiculously early."

She laughed, breaking the tension. "Well, if you spend the rest of our lives buying me jewellery whenever you want to sleep in, then we'll be bankrupt before we're fifty."

"Don't make me choose between money and a good night's sleep." He play acted anguish, and then lay back on the mattress. Daine leaned over him, her voice suspicious.

"You're not planning on getting any sleep tonight, are you?"

"Until an hour ago I was rather looking forward to it." He pushed himself up onto his elbows and looked rather serious. "Of course, that was before I realised I had been challenged to a rematch by my wife."

She smiled irresistably and leaned closer. "Say that again."

"I was looking forward to going to sleep?"

"No!" She shoved at him petulantly and grinned when he started laughing. Sitting up, he pulled her into his lap and kissed the end of her nose.

"Hello, little wife." He said softly. "I love you."

888


End file.
